Three youths accused of killing a man after entering into his house have been acquitted by a Delhi court on the grounds that family members of the victim who were key witnesses failed to identify them as the murderers and turned "hostile".
Additional Sessions Judge Vikas Dhull let off Mahinder, Vikas and Deepak saying the victim's wife, who claimed to be an eye witness to the incident, denied that the accused are the same persons who killed her husband.
"The material witnesses (wife, brother and the father of the deceased) of this case were not supporting the prosecution story and had turned hostile.... Hence, all accused (Mahinder, Vikas and Deepak) are acquitted for offence under section 302 (murder)/120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC," the court said, adding that "apart from the eye witness, no other evidence is there to connected the accused with the crime in question".
While lodging an FIR on April 7, 2012, the victim's brother Arun Kumar had told the police that when his elder brother Naresh was sleeping in his room and his sister-in-law was washing clothes downstairs, the accused went upstairs and fired at the victim.
"The wife of the deceased, thereafter, apprised Kumar, who was also sleeping in his room at the ground floor. Kumar tried to stop the youths, carrying gun in their hands, but they pushed the complainant and ran away," the police had said.
"Despite the accused being shown to the witness (wife), she deposed that they did not come to her house on April 7, 2012 and further denied that accused... Are the same persons, who had killed her husband.
"Therefore, in the present case, sole eye witness has not identified accused as the same persons, who had come to her house and had killed her husband," the court said.
While freeing the accused, the judge also noted that in this case, weapon of offence could not be recovered and there was no scientific evidence to show that recovered bullet and cartridges were fired from the weapon recovered from the accused.
"Even the car alleged to have been used in the crime in question i.E. Hyundai i-10 could not be recovered," it added.
