MADURAI: The Madurai Bench recently acquitted a man who was accused of murdering his friend for sexually harassing his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter in Tirunelveli, in 2016. A Bench of justices G Jayachandran and Sunder Mohan passed the order on an appeal filed by the man Kumar (name changed), challenging the life sentence imposed on him by the IV Additional district and Sessions Court, Tirunelveli in 2019.
According to the prosecution, during the village temple festival on the night of August 27, 2016, Kumar took the deceased to a nearby farm, attacked him with sharp weapons and set him on fire. The judges noted that the statement of the eye-witnesses, who claimed that the deceased was last seen with Kumar, cannot be considered genuine as they had not revealed the same to the police in the first round of questioning.
Moreover, though the prosecution relied on Kumar’s alleged extrajudicial confession, the village administrative officer had failed to record the statement in a proper manner, creating a suspicion, the judges added. Holding that the prosecution has not established the circumstances against Kumar conclusively, they allowed the appeal and acquitted Kumar from the charges.