New Delhi, Feb 3 A Delhi court has acquitted a man accused of murdering a rickshaw puller in Daryaganj in 2015, holding that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and that its key eyewitness was unreliable.
Additional Sessions Judge Virender Kumar Kharta acquitted accused Raju Bhangra of the charge under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, granting him the benefit of doubt.
The case relates to the killing of Ahsan Khan, a rickshaw puller, whose body was found on the intervening night of September 16-?17, 2015, near Ghata Masjid in Daryaganj, allegedly with head injuries caused by a concrete stone.
The prosecution claimed that a monetary dispute between the accused and the deceased had led to the murder. Several witnesses alleged that the accused stated after the monetary dispute that "Ahsan will not see the sun of tomorrow".
The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Munna Tiwari, projected as an eyewitness of the incident.
Tiwari earlier claimed that he was awakened from his sleep by the screams of Ahsan on the night of his death and saw the accused standing behind the deceased. However, during cross-examination, the witness retracted his earlier version and stated that he had not seen the incident, prompting the court to treat him as hostile.
"Munna Tiwari has completely turned hostile with respect to the alleged incident and he has given two different versions which cannot co-exist. In these circumstances, the testimony of Munna Tiwari cannot be said to be of sterling quality and hence cannot be relied upon on any point," said the court in its judgment dated January 31.
The accused alleged he was falsely implicated in the case.
The judge pointed out that despite a police booth being located merely 25-?30 steps away from the spot, the witness neither raised an alarm nor informed the police immediately, which further dented the credibility of the prosecution story.
"His conduct seems to be quite suspicious. Thus, the testimony of Munna Tiwari cannot be relied upon," the court said.
The court also noted gaps in the investigation, including the absence of CCTV footage and lack of convincing scientific evidence directly linking the accused to the crime.
"Either the investigating officer has concealed something or he has conducted a faulty investigation by not collecting the material piece of evidence. Non-collection of CCTV footage of the above said places is fatal to the case of the prosecution and without any direct and corroborative evidence, it cannot be presumed that the accused went to the spot of incident and committed murder of the deceased," said the court.
Furthermore, the court questioned the veracity of the witness testimonies as they suffered from material contradictions and were not sufficient to prove the monetary dispute as the motive behind the crime.
"The prosecution has not produced any credible evidence in the form of some eyewitness in whose presence, money was given by the deceased to the accused or any document showing the liability of the accused towards the deceased," it said.
Referring to the alleged remarks made by the accused that "Ahsan will not see the sun of tomorrow", the court questioned the prosecution's version as it observed, "If the deceased was directly threatened by the accused, he could have approached the police authority or he could have taken some precautions in this regard but nothing like that happened in the present case which make the alleged incident suspicious."
Acquitting Raju Bhangra of all charges, the court noted that since the prosecution failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, the benefit of doubt must go to the accused.
