Delhi:
Irked by "the actual culprit going scot-free" due to shoddy probe into mysterious death of a 16-year-old girl, a Delhi court has directed the city police chief to probe the case further to nail the real guilty.
"I have no hesitation to conclude that not only the prosecution has miserably failed to bring home the guilt of the accused, but lacunae in the investigation point out towards the actual culprit going scot-free," Additional Sessions Judge Savita Rao said, absolving an accused of charges of driving a girl to commit suicide in 2007.
Noting the signs of lacunae in the probe, the judge said, "Investigation Officer (IO) admitted that firstly the husband of the complainant and his son disclosed the cause of death as falling down from stairs and then after two or three minutes, the cause of death was disclosed as suicide by hanging.
"This speaks volumes about the conduct of the family members of the deceased in trying to save the actual culprit," the court added.
The prosecution had submitted that accused Balvinder Singh used to extort money from the girl, threatening her that he would disclose about their "illicit relationship" to all and defame her and that he would get her brothers murdered.
Buckling under his pressure, the victim had even given him Rs 500 twice, the prosecution had added.
The victim's mother deposed that her daughter had told her several times about the accused, who used to blackmail her, and she had stopped her from going to school for a few days to ward off the threat by the boy.
She told the court that on September 18, 2007, when she was at her shop along with her husband, a neighbourhood child came running there to inform that something untoward has happened to her daughter back home.
Following the information, she rushed back home along with her husband and rushed their unconscious daughter to the nearby hospital, where she was declared "brought dead".
The prosecution asserted that the girl had committed suicide due to the harassment meted out to her by the accused.
But pleading not guilty, Singh contended that it was the girl's brother who had murdered his sister and the family had heaped the blame on him to save the boy.
The court, while acquitting Singh, also noted that the family members did not allow the girl's autopsy or getting the scene of the incident photographed.