Mumbai: The family of the mother and daughter, who were murdered in their house at Shahu Nagar, Mahim, in January 2019 approached the Bombay high court against the acquittal of the two accused in the case. In April 2023, the sessions court acquitted the accused – the husband of the woman and his lover – from charges of murder.
The brother of the woman filed an appeal through advocate Quintin D’souza. It stated, “The trial court has failed to appreciate the evidence in its proper perspective and analyse the documents on record while pronouncing the impugned judgement of acquittal.”
Speaking about the appeal, the brother of the victim said that the entire family was surprised at the April 2023 order of acquittal as the chargesheet in the case had ample evidence to implicate the accused. “The HC had rejected the bail application of the woman in January 2020 based on the evidence which was produced before the trial court,” the brother said.
The bail rejection order by justice S K Shinde had stated, “The CCTV footage, report of the Fingerprint Bureau and the call records, prima-facie discloses the applicant’s complicity in the offence. The offence is punishable by life or death. In view of the evidence, the bail application is rejected.”
The Shahu Nagar police, which was investigating the double murder, completed the investigation and apprehended the accused within 24 hours of the crime. According to the chargesheet, “The husband killed the woman and their three-year-old daughter by slitting their throats and left home around 9am on January 31, 2019. The woman with whom the husband allegedly had an affair then reached the house around 11am and set fire to the house using cooking oil so that both the bodies would be charred and the evidence of the murders would be destroyed.”
{{/usCountry}}The Shahu Nagar police, which was investigating the double murder, completed the investigation and apprehended the accused within 24 hours of the crime. According to the chargesheet, “The husband killed the woman and their three-year-old daughter by slitting their throats and left home around 9am on January 31, 2019. The woman with whom the husband allegedly had an affair then reached the house around 11am and set fire to the house using cooking oil so that both the bodies would be charred and the evidence of the murders would be destroyed.”
{{/usCountry}}It added that the woman also allegedly tried to make the murders seem like suicide by sending a message from the woman’s phone to her husband, saying that the victim and her daughter were “leaving him forever.”
“We have full faith in the judiciary and though the state will be filing an appeal against the acquittal in HC we wanted to make sure that the HC is provided with sufficient material to decide on whether the acquittal was valid,” the brother said.
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