‘Knife used to stab Junaid not recovered in my presence’

Jatola sarpanch contradicts police claims while deposing before local court

Contradicting police claims, Jatola sarpanch Giriraj deposed before a local court here on Tuesday in the Junaid murder case and said the knife allegedly used in commission of the offence was not recovered in his presence. Besides Mr. Giriraj, three more prosecution witnesses deposed in court.

Deposing before the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Y. S. Rathor, Mr. Giriraj said the police had already recovered the weapon from the village pond when he reached the spot, following which they took his signature. He denied that accused Naresh had led the police to the weapon in the pond in his presence.

“When I reached the home of Mr. Naresh’s maternal uncle Dayachand, the policemen were sitting on a cot and the knife had already been recovered,” Mr. Giriraj told the court.

Denying having said that Mr. Naresh had told him he had thrown the knife in the pond, the sarpanch said the contents of his statement under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as recorded by the police were not read to him. However, Mr. Giriraj identified the knife shown to him in court as the “same which was recovered from the pond”.

Pond drain claim

He also contradicted the police statement that the pond was drained to recover the weapon. The sarpanch contended that the pond was spread over an area of 4.5 acre and the water was around two feet deep when the police came to recover the knife. Maintaining that he did not know Mr. Naresh, Mr. Giriraj said therefore he could not substantiate the police’s claim that the accused had accompanied them at the time of the recovery of the weapon.

Though Mr. Naresh’s counsel Shekhar Anand Gupta argued that the recovery of the knife had been falsified after going through the statement of Mr. Giriraj, complainant’s counsel P. L. Goyal argued that the statement did not cause any harm to the case. He said the police officers will depose before the court later to substantiate that their version was correct.

The Regional Forensic Science Laboratory report on blood samples on the knife also remained inconclusive as it said that “traces of blood were too small for serological analysis”.

Government Hospital Medical Officer Tarun, who was part of a three-member board formed to conduct the medical examination of Sakir, one of Junaid’s injured brothers, maintained before the court that injuries caused to him were ‘dangerous to life’ as he underwent an intercostal drain procedure at the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

Dr. Tarun said he could not say whether Mr. Sakir suffered injury to vital organs as he had not seen his ultrasound report. He said the air entry and air exit of the injured was positive, and the depth of the injury was not measured. Dr. Tarun said it was not mentioned in the Medico Legal Report whether the injury to Mr. Sakir was a stab wound or just a slash.

CCTV footage

During cross-examination by Mr. Gupta, Dr. Tarun said penetration of vital organs, cavity and other conditions were important to adjudicate whether the injuries were ‘dangerous to life’. He conceded that there was a difference between an injury being dangerous to life and an injury likely to cause death.

Head constable Ajay and Asaoti village sarpanch Karn also deposed in court. Mr. Karn told the court that the police came to him on July 3 to procure footage from closed-circuit television cameras installed at several places, including Gandhi Ghar, in his village. It was this CCTV footage that led the police to Mr. Naresh.