The Maharashtra court, Thane has recently acquitted a factory owner who was accused of killing his employee and hiding her body.
Sessions judge AN Sirsikar held that the prosecution failed to prove the charges under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code against factory owner Vikas Ramchandra Mhatre (39).
A copy of the order passed on March 31 has been made available today.
According to the prosecution, the victim Sunita Ahire worked at Mhatre’s manufacturing unit in Diva.
The prosecution claimed that in June 2015, the accused killed the victim by gagging her and later packed the body in a plastic drum and covered it with cement and water and transported it to the Shilphata-Mahape road and threw it by the side of the road, and covered it with sand.
Locals found the body after about 4 days and the police soon established the identity of the victim based on a missing person’s complaint lodged by her daughter.
The judge in his order stated that the prosecution’s case against the accused was based on circumstantial evidence. The prosecution failed to establish the fact that the accused had committed murder and concealed the evidence.
