COURT NEWS

‘Murdered’ man found alive, 2 acquitted

Navsari : A court in Navsari has acquitted two persons after finding out that the man, for whose alleged murder they were arrested six years ago, was alive.

The court of additional sessions judge Saranga Vyas in an order issued on March 30 also directed the investigating officer the then inspector of Navsari (rural) police station to pay Rs 50,000 compensation to each of the two men for his "careless investigation" that caused mental and physi cal agony to them and also hurt their social reputation.

Accused Madan Pipladi and Suresh Batela were arrested on the basis of an FIR lodged at Navsari r ural police station in Gujarat on July 6, 2016 for the alleged mur der of Nagulal Gayari. , who was presumed dead and the body recovered by the police was mistakenly identified as that of his by his family members due to resemblance.

The accused were kept in jail for nearly th ree months before being released on bail, while the trial against them continued under sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), and 114 (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), before the court acquitted them five days back.

Police had arrested the duo after wrongly identifying the body of a murder victim to be that of Gayari's, who had been missing for some time. Meanwhile, Gayari's family members took the body to their native place at Mandsaur district in Ma dhya Pradesh and performed the last rites.

It was only a few hours after performing the last rites that Gayari's brother learnt about him being alive and residing with his relative. They promptly informed thi

s to the police.

Despite this, the police went ahead and filed a charge sheet ag ainst the duo claiming that they murdered Gayari, who worked in the same factory as theirs and lived nearby, for alleg edly trespassing into the house of one of the accused one night. Gayari la ter confessed to the police of having entered the house of an accused one night looking for food as he was hungry, but esca- ped after his wife woke up. Fearing consequences for trespassing, Gayari escaped from Navsari the same night and went to live with his relatives.

In the charge sheet, the police said that the main accused conspired with the other one and a minor to strangulate the victim to death using a nylon rope before throwing it on the side of the road out of animosity against Gayari for trespassing into his house . The court observed that due to the negligence of the investigating officer, the duo suffered mental, physical torture and loss of finance and social reputation.

They cannot be compensated for what they suffered between 2016 and 2022, the court said, while ordering the pol ice inspector Pradipsinh Gohil to pay Rs 50,000 to each one of them.

PTI