Court acquits 4, convicts 2 to life in 2017 double murder case

Ludhiana: “It is not sufficient that a case may be true, but it must be true. Between ‘may be true’ and ‘must be true’ there is inevitably a long line of distance, which must be travelled on legal, logical and in unimpeachable manner.” The court of additional sessions judge Jagdeep Singh Marok made these observations while acquitting four of the six accused in a double murder case of a couple, even as it convicted two accused for the crime.

On June 9, 2017, Dugri police had registered a case under sections 302 (murder), 397 (robbery, or dacoity, with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt), 449 (house-trespass in order to commit offence punishable with death), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC and sections of arms act against Raju Tiwari (33), a ward boy of Bajwa Colony, Sandeep Singh (36), helper in same hospital of Sunet, Sonu Ali (37), a tailor of BRS Nagar, Aman Masih (33), ward boy, of Chander Nagar, Krishna Pandey (25) IAF employee of Jharkhand and Sumit Parshad, IAF employee of Agra in a murder case of a couple Sunil Gupta and Neelam Rani of Dugri.

According to the prosecution, the station house officer of Dugri police station received a wireless message about an incident of firing in the vicinity of Dugri and thereafter he went to the place of occurrence where complainant Rahul Gupta recorded his statement that at about 2pm, outside the main gate of his house he had heard gun shots. When he opened the door, he noticed the presence of two clean shaven persons who had entered the house. He tried to stop them but they ran away from the spot. Later, he found his father Sunil Gupta shot dead in his head. The mother of the complainant was also found by him lying injured in the bathroom, with a gunshot wound and later she died at a city hospital. Complainant identified the accused as Sandeep and Raju Tiwari. The prosecution said the accused had entered the house of the complainant for burglary.

After registering case into the matter, police arrested the accused and produced chargesheet against them in court. During the trial, the accused pleaded false implication.

The defence counsel pleaded that the version of accused Sandeep regarding the involvement of accused Raju Tiwari is not admissible, as confession made by an accused against his accomplice would not suffice for the purpose of making the said accomplice liable.

The court rejecting the plea held that this plea of the defence counsel is without any substance as during the course of investigation, accused Sandeep had disclosed the name of his accomplice Raju Tiwari in the commission of the alleged offence.

The court observed that the facts and circumstances of the case are sufficient to connect accused Raju Tiwari and Sandeep with the commission of the alleged offence. “In a case of circumstantial evidence, the circumstances on which the prosecution relies must be consistent with the sole hypothesis of the guilt of the accused,” the court remarked.

“Regarding the liability of other accused, the prosecution did not lead evidence to prove their involvement in the straightforward manner,” the court remarked while acquitting four other accused in the case.

But the court sentenced both the accused Raju and Sandeep to life imprisonment after finding them guilty in the case.