The Hindu : National : Five acquitted in cartoonist murder case

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Saturday, Apr 01, 2006

National

National

Five acquitted in cartoonist murder case

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of acquittal of all the nine accused in the Jessica Lal murder case, the Delhi police have once again failed to secure the conviction of the accused in the murder of Outlook cartoonist Irfan Hussain here in 1999.

A city court on Friday acquitted all five accused in the case saying that the police had failed to make a complete chain of circumstantial evidence against them.

Acquitting the five — Mustafa Ansari, Sanjay Kumar, Heera Singh, Mohammed Jasin and Mohammed Shahid — Additional Sessions Judge Talwant Singh said the police version of the case seemed to have been lifted from a detective novel or a Bollywood film.

Irfan was abducted and later his decomposed body was found in a bush on National Highway 8 in Ghazipur in East Delhi in September 1999.

"In a case of circumstantial evidence, each and every circumstance should be proved independently,'' the judge observed.

Initially, the police had charge-sheeted six accused in the case. But the case of sixth accused Mohammed Sadiq was, on his request, later transferred to the Juvenile Justice Board as he was below 15 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime.

60 witnesses examined

Though it was a case based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution had examined a total of 60 witnesses to prove the charge.

At the time of filing the charge-sheet, the police did not have many facts on record to connect the involvement of the accused persons to the murder of Irfan.

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