HYDERABAD: A Rangareddy POCSO court acquitted a 25-year-old man accused of sexually harassing a minor girl through social media and sending threatening WhatsApp messages, observing that while witnesses consistently deposed against the accused, the police investigation was “defective” and lacked any electronic evidence to corroborate the oral testimonies.
The case was registered at LB Nagar police station in February 2021 based on a complaint filed by the victim’s father.
According to the complaint, Abdul Rahaman had harassed the complainant’s 17-year-old daughter through social media in October 2019. A case was then registered against him under Sections 506, 509 and 354-D of the IPC.
The complainant further alleged that in 2021, Abdul threatened the family to withdraw the earlier case, failing which he would upload vulgar and defamatory photographs of the girl on Facebook and Instagram. He was also accused of sending threatening WhatsApp messages to the victim’s mother and deleting them immediately afterwards. The family further alleged that he frequently roamed near their house on a motorcycle, causing fear and harassment.
Based on the complaint, police registered another case under Sections 354-D, 504 and 506 of the IPC and Section 11(iv) read with 12 of the POCSO Act.
During trial, the prosecution argued that the allegations were consistently reiterated by the victim and her parents in their oral testimonies before the court. However, the court observed that despite the allegations centring around electronic communication and social media threats, investigators failed to collect supporting digital evidence.
The court noted that the investigating officer did not obtain Call Data Records (CDR) or Customer Application Forms (CAF) linked to the phones of Abdul, the victim or her mother to establish communication between them.
It further observed that no screenshots, chat records, extracted data or certificates under Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act were collected or produced before the court, despite allegations involving WhatsApp threats.
Though Abdul’s mobile phone was seized, police failed to send it to the Forensic Science Laboratory for data retrieval and analysis. The court also noted that investigators did not collect Facebook or Instagram account details of either the accused or the victim to substantiate the allegations of social media harassment.
“Despite the serious nature of the allegations and despite the fact that the entire prosecution case was substantially dependent upon electronic evidence, no sincere effort appears to have been made during investigation to secure the best possible evidence,” the court observed.
Holding that the defective investigation created substantial gaps in the prosecution’s case, the court ruled that it would be unsafe to convict the accused solely on uncorroborated oral testimony and acquitted him.
