6 years on, court acquits trio of murdering retired US Army officer in Andheri

Three brothers accused of murdering a retired US Army officer in Mumbai were acquitted due to the prosecution's failure to establish the sequence of events. The complainant, the victim's wife, changed her statement during the trial, and key witnesses turned hostile. The court concluded that the prosecution failed to prove the case.

Mumbai: Observing that the prosecution failed to establish the sequence of the incident, the sessions court recently acquitted three brothers who were booked for murdering a retired US Army officer over a parking scuffle in January 2017.

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In the FIR, the complainant, Sushma Mane, wife of the victim, Subhash Mane, said that her husband had returned to India in December 2016. She claimed that there was a dispute between them and the family of the accused – Kishore Shirke, Kunal Shirke and Sunil Shirke – over parking of vehicles in their building, Bhimchhaya Society, Andheri West.

Sushma alleged that on January 31, 2017, there was a scuffle between the two families wherein Subhash, his daughter Siddhi and the three accused sustained injuries.

It was alleged that Kishore, Kunal, Sunil and another absconding accused had assaulted Mane with bamboo sticks and knives and molested Siddhi. All the injured were shifted to a hospital, but Subhash succumbed to his injuries. Then, Sushma filed a case against the Shirke brothers.

During the trial, however, Sushma said that she was not at the spot when the incident occurred, and her daughter Siddhi was sleeping at that time. She claimed that when she received a message about the scuffle, she went down and saw her husband bleeding with stabbing injuries.

Meanwhile, Siddhi denied the allegations that the accused molested her and assaulted her father with knives. She also claimed that she did not remember where her father had sustained injuries.

The prosecution had examined other residents of the building, who all turned hostile and said they did not know about the incident. Besides, they also claimed that the accused and the victim did not quarrel, and the police did not record the statements of the residents. The watchman of the building turned hostile as well and said he had not seen the incident but had heard from others that there was a scuffle.

The sessions judge AZ Khan, after nine key witnesses were declared hostile, rejected the prosecution’s plea to examine more witnesses and acquitted the trio from the charges of murder, observing, “The examination of other witnesses would be nothing but a futile effort on the part of the prosecution, and the conviction cannot be sustained. The prosecution failed to prove the case.”