Thane’s district court in Maharashtra has acquitted a 43-year-old man who was accused of committing a murder approximately nine years ago.
Sessions Judge Rachna R Tehra granted the accused, Ravindra Devu Lathad from Vajreshwari, the benefit of the doubt and criticized the police for conducting an inadequate investigation.
According to the prosecution, both Lathad and the victim, Vishnu Balu Bhoir, were from the same village and were acquainted with each other. They were known to associate with a local woman. Allegedly, Lathad did not approve of Bhoir visiting the woman.
The prosecution asserted that Lathad attacked Bhoir with an iron rod on December 25, 2014, resulting in Bhoir’s death. It was also claimed that the two had a confrontation over the woman on the preceding evening.
Advocate Sunil J Patankar, who represented Lathad, argued that his client had no involvement in the murder, and there were no eyewitnesses to the crime.
Judge Tehra, giving Lathad the benefit of the doubt, strongly criticized the police. She stated, “The prosecution has utterly failed to prove any one of the three circumstances against the accused, and the chain of circumstances was broken at every stage without connecting the accused to the commission of the alleged crime.”
The court expressed its disapproval of the investigation officer’s casual approach to the probe, conducted seemingly just to file the chargesheet. Judge Tehra expressed hope that the relevant authorities would take note of these shortcomings.
