‘Utter confusion in prosecution case’

“Unfortunately, there seems to be utter confusion in the prosecution case,” the City Mahila court order dated June 9, 2022 states while acquitting the two accused in the brutal murder of a 48-year-old woman, P Dhanalakshmi, a resident of Makkees garden, near Thousand Lights.

Her decomposed body was found on November 3, 2016, near the house of one of the accused. Her hands and legs were tied with plastic tape and her mouth was gagged. The prosecution case was that the deceased objected to one of the tenants in her house bringing strangers home and warned her that she would evict her, after which the woman, along with her male friend murdered her.

From manipulation of records and case properties to not providing any independent witness in the case, Thousand Lights police did not help themselves before the court.

The investigating agency has tried to fabricate a case that the accused purchased a mobile phone from the money obtained by selling the gold stolen from the victim, the court noted from the contradicting seizure documents produced by the police. “Further, all witnesses for the confession and recoveries being close relatives of the deceased raises serious doubts,” the court noted and wondered why the police could not secure any independent witnesses and the IO did not even submit that he summoned witnesses and they refused.

The latches and flaws found in the investigation would reveal that the accused could have been taken into custody much earlier and the documents were fabricated later according to the convenience of the investigating officer, the court held and stated that the prosecution has miserably failed to establish and prove the arrest, confession and recovery of material objects beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted the accused.