Woman acquitted of killing husband, gets benefit of doubt

A 21-year-old woman accused of killing her husband has been acquitted of murder charges by a court here in Maharashtra.

Principal District Judge Virendra G Bisht in his order pronounced last week observed that the prosecution miserably failed to prove charges under IPC Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) against the accused - Jehara Mohammed Mehandi Sayyed.

The prosecution told the court that the accused's husband Mohammed Mehandi Sayyed was found unconscious at their home in Mumbra township on May 2, 2017 and later died at a hospital.

The deceased's uncle raised suspicion over the circumstances of his death and approached police.

The police took custody of the body while it was being taken for burial, and sent it for postmortem.

The prosecution told the court that the postmortem report stated the cause of death as "compression of neck by ligature material".

The prosecution further alleged that the wife of the deceased throttled him with a scarf and threw the cloth in a garbage bin to cause disappearance of evidence of the offence.

The judge, however, observed that there was absolutely no evidence of any frequent arguments or behavioural dissensions between the couple.

"It is also not the case of prosecution that their matrimonial relation had reached such a nadir that anything untoward could have happened. Suffice to say, the prosecution has not been able to establish firmly the motive behind the offence," he said.

The links in the chain of circumstances cannot be said to have been established, which may lead to an inescapable conclusion that the woman killed her husband, the judge noted.

"Therefore, the benefit of doubt that has arisen in the case must go to the accused," he said while acquitting the woman.