By Ritika Jain
A local court in Panipat on May 20 acquitted Ikhlak Salmani of sodomising a minor boy a year and a half after he was arrested by the Haryana Police. A fast-track court cleared Salmani—who alleged that his arm was chopped off because he was a Muslim—of all charges after observing that the prosecution had failed to make its case beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt.
The testimonies of the victim and the key witnesses could not be corroborated by medical evidence, the court observed adding that they ran "rather contrary to the assertions made by the victim."
"The entire case of the prosecution is centered on the testimonies of the victim, his father and his uncle. However, neither the victim nor his father and uncle have been able to inspire the confidence of the Court in their credibility," POCSO judge Sukhpreet Singh said in his order which was accessed by BOOM today.
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Prosecution's version improbable and uncorroborated: POCSO Court
Pointing to the evidence produced before the court, the judge observed that the prosecution's version created doubts. "There is no explanation by the prosecution regarding the delay in registration of FIR by the complainant," the judge added referring to the 10 days delay between the incident and the filing of the FIR.
"It is settled legal proposition that FIR in a criminal case is an extremely vital and valuable piece of evidence for the purpose of corroborating the oral evidence adduced at the trial," the order read.
"Delay in lodging the first information report, quite often results in embellishment, which is a creature of after-thought," the judge said. "On account of delay, the report not only gets bereft of the advantage of spontaneity, danger creeps in of the introduction of coloured version, exaggerated account or concocted story as a result of deliberation and consultation," he added.
"In fact, the entire version of the prosecution is improbable and has remained uncorroborated and unexplained in many aspects," the order read.
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What is the case about?
On August 24, 2020 the then 28-year-old Salmani was found grievously injured with his arm chopped off by a chainsaw. Salmani alleged that he was assaulted by the victim's family and his arm was sawed off the night before simply because he asked for a glass of water.
Almost two weeks later, on September 7, the victim's family filed an FIR accusing Salmani of sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy. Four months later, Haryana Police arrested Salmani.
During the trial, Salmani's counsel had argued that sexual abuse charges were filed in retaliation to the FIR he filed against the victim's family for attacking him.
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