Thane, Feb 8 A Thane court has acquitted all eight accused in the case of the murder of a property dealer in 2015, noting the prosecution failed to prove the charges primarily due to the failure of eye-witnesses to identify the assailants.
Another accused died during the pendency of the trial.
Principal District and Sessions Judge S B Agrawal, in the judgment on Saturday, observed that the foundation of the case - identification of the killers - was fundamentally flawed.
According to the prosecution, Bunty Pradhan, a local property dealer, was exiting a bar on Mira-Bhayander Road with his friends in Maharashtra's Thane district on April 13, 2015, when some unidentified persons opened fire on them.
Pradhan succumbed to multiple bullet wounds, while his friend, Sachin Manohar Vijaykar, sustained serious injuries.
The police had initially claimed the attack was a result of a property rivalry and arrested the accused, charging them under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to Murder), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Arms Act.
The judge, however, noted that the informant did not identify the accused persons before the court, saying he could not identify the true assailants.
Regarding the testimony of the injured witness, Sachin Vijaykar, who gave a version involving six attackers instead of the two mentioned in the original First Information Report, the court said this was totally in contradiction with what has been stated in the FIR and also by the informant in his evidence.
The identification described by the witness is "quite cryptic" and his identification in the court for the first time is also not of any worth after ten years, it stated.
The court further noted that other eye-witnesses, including Julekha Shaikh, who heard the shots she mistook for firecrackers, were also unable to identify the accused.
While the prosecution examined witnesses to prove a land dispute as the motive, the court found this insufficient without direct evidence of the shooting itself.
"In the absence of substantive evidence in respect of the incident, their evidence pertaining to the motive is also not of any consequence," it said.
The court acquitted Jiten Jwala, Rajesh Chauhan, Ravindra Arya, Jatashankar Pande, Mukesh Shetty, Yashodip Naik, Ajay Singh, and Rahul Sharma. Another accused Mayank Gala, died during the pendency of the trial.
While seven of the accused were already out on bail, the court ordered the immediate release of Rahul Sharma, who was still in custody.
