Thane Court: Accused Acquitted in 2019 Woman Murder Case
Thane: A Thane court has acquitted a 33-year-old man accused of murdering a woman in 2019, noting that the prosecution’s case collapsed as it relied on an inadmissible confession and lacked incriminating evidence.
No articles were recovered, and the locations indicated by the accused cannot be established as the actual scene of the incident, Principal District and Sessions Judge S B Agrawal observed in the order on Monday.
In the absence of any independent corroborative material, the testimony of the witness carries no evidentiary value, he noted while acquitting the accused, Himanshu Mohan Gujale.
The case dates back to March 27, 2019, when the highly decomposed body of a woman was found near a brick kiln in the Kalyan area of Maharashtra‘s Thane district.
Following a dead end in the initial probe, the Diaghar police filed an ‘A’ summary report (unsolved case) before a magistrate in February 2021.
The case was, however, reopened on July 8, 2023, when Gujale walked into the Laxmi Nagar police station in Kolhapur and purportedly confessed out of remorse.
According to the prosecution, Gujale claimed that he and his associate, Sandesh Parab, had hit the woman with a sickle, throttled her, poured petrol and set her ablaze in the Bhiwandi area of Thane. He also claimed that he dumped the weapon and clothes in a nearby creek.
However, during the trial, the prosecution’s narrative collapsed as none of the claimed items was recovered from the sites pointed out by the accused.
It would be apposite to mention that the entire case of the prosecution is based upon a purported confessional statement, disclosure and recovery, the judge observed.
“As far as confessions are concerned, the same are inadmissible. As far as disclosure and recovery is concerned, since there is no recovery of any article, the same is also not of any use,” the court noted.
Concluding that the prosecution failed to link the accused to the crime scene or the body, the court ordered Gujale’s immediate release from jail.
Another co-accused, Ganesh Kharate, had already been released by the police during the investigation under Section 169 of the CrPC due to lack of evidence, while the third accused, Sandesh Parab, remains absconding.
