E-Paper
High court comes to rescue of woman convicted for killing her children 22 years ago
A Maharashtra woman, who was convicted for killing her children, has been set free by the Bombay High Court. A Nashik court had sentenced Radhabai Rokade in August 1998 for throwing her three-year-old son and one-and-half-year old daughter in a well.
A Maharashtra woman, who was convicted for killing her children, has been set free by the Bombay High Court. A Nashik court had sentenced Radhabai Rokade in August 1998 for throwing her three-year-old son and one-and-half-year old daughter in a well.
Rokade was also convicted for attempting suicide by jumping into the same well. She was on bail.
The incident dates back to June 8, 1997, when Rokade allegedly took the extreme step. The prosecution had claimed that Rokade decided to kill her children after she got fed up with the ill-treatment meted out to her by her husband and in-laws.
But at high court, the division bench of justice SS Shinde and justice VG Bisht, found gaps in the case against her. First, the judges did not find any reason to believe that the relationship between Rokade and her husband was strained and she was harassed at her matrimonial home.
The judges also found fault with two star witnesses in the case. One of them - an eyewitness - had claimed to have seen the woman dragging her children towards the well. She stated that Rokade first threw her daughter in the well. Her son then started running away, she caught him and threw him in the well and later herself took the plunge.
The judges noted that this eyewitness raised an alarm only after the woman took the plunge into well water and not immediately after she saw Rokade throwing her daughter in the well. Besides, the judges noted that the eyewitness admitted in her cross-examination that she was beyond 1 km of the spot of incident and therefore could not have witnessed the incident.
The second witness was one of the two rescuers who claimed to have pulled out Rokade from thw well. The judges noted that he had stated in his testimony that when he attempted to rescue the woman, she asked him not to do so and revealed that she had herself thrown her children in the well. The rescuer, however, admitted in cross-examination that the woman was unconscious when he rescued her and water had entered into her lungs and filled her windpipe as well.
The high court also took into consideration the time and place of the incident. On the day of the incident, it was raining heavily and the area around the well was muddy and slippery. The judges said possibility of the three falling in the well accidentally cannot be ruled out as there was no protective wall around the well.
