Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 4: Additional District & Sessions Judge Poonch Parvaiz Iqbal today acquitted three persons, who were facing charges of kidnapping and raping a minor girl from Gunthal Surankote.
The case FIR No 3 of 2013 Police Station Surankote was mired in controversies at the investigation stage because of aspersions raised over various officers involved in the investigation process.
“It has been proved that prosecutrix and Zulfikar Ahmed had consensual sexual intimacy which resulted in pregnancy to her. The prosecution has failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused Zulfikar Ahmed committed rape by leading unflinching and cogent evidence”, the court said, adding “kidnapping has also not been proved and there are sufficient reasons for the court to believe that the prosecutrix had voluntarily eloped with accused Zulfikar Ahmed and she was intelligent and mature enough to know and understand the fall out and repercussions of her action”.
“The allegation of gang rape leveled by the prosecutrix which has not been supported even by the prosecution is found not based on truth and possibly a reaction to the allegation of voluntarily causing death of new born against the family of prosecutrix as well as a ploy to swindle Rs 3 lakh received by family of prosecutrix from accused Zulfikar Ahmed in a panchayat”, court said.
Recording its strong criticism about the quality of investigation, the court further observed, “fair trial and investigation are the constitutional guarantees to every citizen under Articles 20 and 21. Therefore the minimum requirement of rule of law is that the investigation must be fair, transparent and judicious”, adding “investigation has been conducted in a perfunctory and cavalier manner”.
“The investigating officer has not done his duty professionally and left grey areas which ultimately have proved fatal for the case of prosecution. The level of callousness can well be gathered from the fact that none of the Investigating officers has appeared before the court as prosecution witness which as a result proved as the last nail in the coffin for the prosecution case because all the shortfall and lacunas in investigation remained unexplained and resultantly gave the benefit of doubt to the accused persons”, the court said.
Accordingly, Court acquitted the accused persons.
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