Court raps police for manipulating evidence in murder case

Additional Sessions Judge N K Gupta questioned the veracity of the probe in which police recovered two stones allegedly used in smashing the head of the murder victim and sent only one of them for the forensic test.

"The version of recovery of a stone at the instance of Johny (one of the accused) is manipulated and the fact also remains that another stone which was also blood-stained had not been shown to the doctor for advise...," the court said.

The court allowed the plea of defence lawyer Ajay Paul that accused Santosh and Johny were framed and circumstances did not link them with the offence, witnessed by no one.

"Not sending the stone, earlier recovered by police from the place of incident, to FSL for ascertaining the presence of blood and its group or to a doctor rather reflects that second stone had been an implanted one and the fact remains that only one stone had been sent to the FSL," it said. The accused were charged with killing a man named Ajit on February 22, at Mahipalpur in south Delhi by smashing his head with a stone. They were charged with dumping the body in a canal in the area.

The court discarded the testimony of Umed Singh, a sub-inspector of Delhi police, who claimed that he had seen the victim in the company of the accused at 1.30 am near a hotel here on the night of the murder. "If the postmortem report is considered, the time of death is about 9 pm ...," the court said.

Tapan Kumar, another witness who allegedly saw the victim with the accused, turned hostile and did not second the findings of the police in the case. The court also questioned the recovery of the victim's purse from one of the accused.

The case hinged on circumstantial evidence and the police could not prove that the chain of events was complete which could conclude that "in all probability, the crime was committed by the accused and none else," it said.