Mumbai: Two sisters-in-law, who spent eight years in jail on charges of murdering their 15-year-old niece, were acquitted by a sessions court on Tuesday, which concluded that the prosecution failed to establish a case of homicide.The court ordered the immediate release of the two women, who had been in custody since May 2018 when the girl was found unresponsive in the bathroom of their Antop Hill residence. The teenager was in the custody of her maternal grandparents, aunts, and uncles after her mother died from burn injuries when she was a child.While the prosecution alleged the minor was a victim of domestic cruelty and was killed for refusing to perform household chores, the court found the evidence doubtful. The judge observed that though the post-mortem report indicated the cause of death was unnatural, the medical findings did not align with a homicidal act. The court noted that the hyoid bone, which is usually fractured in cases of manual strangulation, remained intact. Further, the court pointed out the absence of signs of a struggle that would be expected if the victim had been strangled by others.The judge also noted that the prosecution failed to establish any credible motive for the accused to harm the child they had raised for over a decade. “The prosecution has failed to show the motive of the accused persons to cause the death of the deceased. Though the case of the prosecution is entirely based on circumstantial evidence, it failed to complete the chain of events which could nail the accused persons for the offence charged.”
