A Delhi court has acquitted a man of kidnapping and molestation charges after noticing a lacunae in the investigation and non-corroboration of the evidence by the victim, a nine-year-old girl.
The court also noted delay in lodging an FIR of the incident and sending it to the Metropolitan Magistrate concerned. The complainant in the case, the mother of the victim, also hid the fact from the police that she knew the accused as he was the tenant of her shop where the girl was allegedly taken after being kidnapped and then molested.
Counsel for the accused, Yasar Arafat, defended him arguing that he had been implicated in the case to pressurise him to vacate the shop. His counsel further stated that the shop was vacated later.
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The medico-legal case also went against the prosecution with the doctor who had examined the victim submitting in the trial that the injuries seemed to be self-inflicted ones.
The blood-stained top of the victim allegedly recovered from the spot was not sent for forensic examination to prove the injuries, which also went against the prosecution. The police had recovered only one piece of the victim’s slipper from the spot.
“In these circumstances, it is seldom to brush aside the defence version that the said articles were not planted to create a false evidence,’’ the court observed on the recovery of the victim’s personal belongings.
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“…there is nothing on record which may show that the top had any blood stains,’’ the court said after seeing it in the trial.
Though the victim stood the ground during her evidence and identified the accused, the court acquitted Arafat as her statement was not corroborated by any other evidence.