UDUPI: A court in Udupi has acquitted a 29-year-old woman accused of allegedly murdering her four-year-old daughter, Ayesha, by drowning her in a bucket of water at their residence in Malpe in April 2020, after finding that the prosecution failed to prove the charge beyond reasonable doubt.
Delivering the judgment, the II Additional District and Sessions Judge A. Samiulla held that the prosecution failed to establish the charge under Section 302 of the IPC beyond reasonable doubt.
The court observed that the case was riddled with inconsistencies, a lack of credible evidence, and a broken chain of circumstances.
According to the case records, the child was taken to the bathroom by her mother on April 10, 2020, for a bath, during which she reportedly fell into a bucket of water and briefly lost consciousness before recovering.
Later that night, at around 1 am, Ayesha was found unconscious again at home. Family members rushed her to KMC Hospital in Manipal, where doctors declared her brought dead.
The couple had three children, including a two-month-old son who had died of pneumonia shortly before the incident. The husband, who worked as a lodge manager in Haveri, used to visit the family only occasionally.
Initially, the incident was treated as an unnatural death, with the child’s father reporting no suspicion.
However, suspicion was later raised and a murder case was registered against the mother, alleging that she had drowned the child to prevent her from revealing a purported gold theft.
The postmortem report confirmed that the cause of death was drowning. However, the court noted that medical evidence alone could not establish who caused the drowning, and the possibility of accidental drowning could not be ruled out.
During the trial, the prosecution examined 17 witnesses. However, several key witnesses turned hostile, and some admitted to being instructed by police to depose in a particular manner.
The alleged motive of gold theft also collapsed, with witnesses contradicting each other and admitting that the story was fabricated.
Significantly, the child’s father had initially stated that there was no suspicion regarding the death and raised allegations only later, which the court viewed with caution.
The testimony of the child’s elder sibling, projected as an eyewitness, also failed to support the prosecution’s case.
The court observed that suspicion, however strong, cannot substitute proof. It further held that the prosecution had failed to present a consistent and reliable narrative linking the accused to the crime.
“In the absence of cogent evidence and a complete chain of circumstances, the benefit of doubt must go to the accused,” the court ruled, acquitting the woman and ordering her release.