Thane, Dec 6: A Thane court has acquitted a woman of murdering a 9-year-old girl in 2019, but sentenced her and a co-accused to three years’ rigorous imprisonment for destroying evidence related to the child’s death.
The postmortem report does not indicate the cause of the girl’s death, as the body was found in a decomposed condition. Therefore, it clearly appears that the prosecution failed to prove how the girl died, Additional Sessions Judge AS Bhagwat said in the judgment on Thursday.
A copy of the order was made available on Saturday.
The girl had been brought from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar to stay with the accused, Anita Rathod (40), and her now-deceased husband, Prakash Rathod, at Uttan in Maharashtra’s Thane district under the pretext of providing education to her.
Prakash Rathod was a relative of the girl’s mother, who is the complainant in the case.
The prosecution alleged that the couple forced the child to do household work and, in a fit of anger over her inability to do the tasks properly and defecating in her clothes, killed the girl by throttling her.
Prakash Rathod committed suicide before the chargesheet was filed in the case.
The court said the prosecution failed to prove the murder charge (under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code) and provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015, against Anita Rathod beyond a reasonable doubt.
There are no eye-witnesses to the incident, the court noted.
“Moreover, the postmortem report does not indicate the cause of death of the deceased since the body was in a decomposed condition. Therefore, it clearly appears that the prosecution failed to prove as to how the deceased died,” it said.
The court also found evidence regarding the ill-treatment of the girl to be “vague and unreliable,” stating that the witnesses were not present at the time of the alleged beating.
Regarding the Juvenile Justice Act section 75, the judge noted that “the prosecution has failed to prove it since no cogent evidence regarding any assault, abuse, exposure or mental or physical suffering of the deceased at the hands of accused Anita has been brought on record.”
Despite the acquittal for the murder charge, Anita and co-accused Akash Sopan Chavan (31) were convicted under sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
“So far as the charge under sections 201, 34 of IPC against both accused is concerned, the clinching evidence is the statement given by accused Akash and consequent discovery of the body stored in the drum and concealed in Kasara Ghat,” it said.
The evidence proved that Akash and Anita were “hand in glove” in the disappearance of evidence of the crime, the court said.
Along with the sentence, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each on the accused and denied their request to release them under the Probation of Offenders Act. (PTI)
