A 26-year-old man accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in 2018 has been acquitted by a court in Maharashtra’s Thane district.
The special court judge, V V Virkar, who presides over cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, passed the order on June 6, granting the accused the benefit of doubt saying that the prosecution has failed to prove the charges against the accused. The order was made available on Monday.
According to the prosecution, the girl and the accused resided in the Mankoli area of Bhiwandi town. On September 23, 2018, the accused allegedly forcibly entered the girl’s house when she was alone. It was alleged that he raped her and then drowned her by immersing her head in a bucket of water.
The defence counsel argued that the accused had been falsely implicated and had no involvement in the crime.
The judge, in her order, noted that the accused had been apprehended based on suspicion and lacked concrete evidence linking him to the crime, as revealed by the police testimony. “In such circumstances, there appears some substance in the submission on behalf of the accused that though the incident of rape and murder of the girl took place, the real culprit could not be revealed and, therefore, the accused was caught on suspicion and prosecuted. In view of all the above discussion, it has to be concluded that the evidence brought on record by the prosecution is not sufficient to establish any of the circumstances against the accused.”
The court emphasized that the failure of the accused to establish a defense did not absolve the prosecution of its responsibility to prove the guilt of the accused. In this case, the prosecution had failed to meet its burden of proof. Consequently, the judge concluded that “In view of my findings, since the prosecution failed to establish any of the allegations against the accused, none of the offences charged against the accused can be held to have been proved and the accused is entitled to be acquitted.”
