2-yr-old acts out mother’s murder

Investigators claim having cracked the murder of a woman with the help of her two-year-old son, leaving legal experts baffled.

Police say the infant used gestures to convey how his “murderer” father killed his mother and then hung the body from a fan.

Harsh will be a key witness in the case. The cops have videographed the “statement” and arrested his father in a dowry death case.

Wariyam Singh, investigating officer, told HT that while testifying as a witness, the boy reconstructed the sequence of events. “Leaving no room for confusion, the little child enacted the brawl and showed how and where his father slapped his mother, pulled her hair, strangled her and hung the body. He did not utter a word, but used gestures and body language,” said Singh.

The victim, a native of Mansa district, was wedded to Devraj on April 29, 2005 and moved to Mata Nagar to live with her husband. Relations between the two had got strained over the past couple of months over dowry demands, the deceased’s mother stated before the police.

Gaganpreet’s body was found hanging from the fan on Tuesday night. Devraj, the police said, tried to mislead by saying he was not home at the time of the tragedy.

Whether on not this “testimony”, in what the cops claim a “rarest of rare” cases, will be admissible in court is debatable.

SHO of Model Town, who is the investigating officer, said being an eyewitness, the child’s statement has full legal sanctity. Legal experts, however, disagree. “A child, who cannot decide what is good or bad for him, cannot determine the nature of a tragedy — murder or suicide. Moreover, as he cannot speak or write, his gestures stand an equal chance of being misconstrued,” said an advocate.