The Madras High Court Bench here has set aside the conviction and varying sentences, including imprisonment for life, imposed on a woman for murdering her nine-year-old son and attempting to murder her six-year-old daughter by administering rat poison besides attempting to commit suicide by hanging at Ambattiyanpatti near here on October 4, 2007.
Allowing an appeal filed by her, a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and V.S. Ravi held that it would not be safe to confirm the conviction and punishment when Sindhupatti police had not ruled out the possibility of some other individuals having poisoned the two children and hanging the woman on a ceiling fan, after making her fall unconscious, as claimed by her.
The judges pointed out that according to the prosecution case, the two children were born to the appellant through her first husband who died in 2006. Within a year after his death, her parents as well as in-laws got her remarried to her brother-in-law. It made the villagers make lewd comments against her and therefore she decided to commit suicide after killing her children.
Though the police claimed that the woman had made her children drink milk laced with rat poison, a post mortem conducted on the body of her son found that there was no milk in his stomach. Further, while deposing before the trial court, the appellant’s daughter too had not spoken anything about her mother having given milk to them on the day of the incident.
Pointing out that the doctors would have certainly subjected the girl to gastric lavage, commonly known as stomach wash, the judges said that the police had failed to produce the chemical analysis report of the contents of the stomach to prove the presence of poison.
“In view of the above position, in our considered view, the prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubts and therefore the accused is entitled for acquittal,” the judges added.
