Missing digital records, no independent witnesses, 11 acquitted in 2016 Herbertpur robbery case

Dehradun: A Dehradun court acquitted all 11 accused in a 2016 robbery case Herbertpur Dehradun district, giving them the benefit of doubt after observing that evidence presented by police was unreliable, key witnesses were absent during recoveries, and crucial call records and chat logs were never submitted in court.The verdict was delivered by additional district and sessions judge Nandan Singh. The case had been filed by Haridwar resident Vishal Sharma, who lodged an FIR on Feb 15, 2016. Sharma had alleged that on Feb 12, he received a call from an unknown woman, whom he later contacted again using the same number. The two then began chatting on WhatsApp. The woman introduced herself as Meenakshi and invited him to Herbertpur. Upon his arrival, Sharma met two women — one identifying herself as Meenakshi and the other as her friend.Meenakshi told him that her friends, Sajid, Tasleem, and Gulsher, owned a house in Haripur village and had given her the keys. Sharma accompanied the two women to the house, where he sat alone with Meenakshi in one of the rooms. A short while later, four men entered, slapped him and used abusive language. "They suddenly came in and started slapping me," Sharma later said in court. He alleged that they took away his ATM card, gold chain, bracelet and car, and later withdrew Rs 10,000 using the stolen card.Following the FIR, police booked unidentified persons under charges of robbery, extortion and related offences. Later, acting on a tip-off that the suspects were travelling from Paonta to Kulhal, police stopped a vehicle and found a knife and some cash with Nazim, Sajid and Tasleem. The trio confessed to the robbery and named eight others — Sharafat, his wife Srishti, Gurpreet Kaur alias Gudia, Nawab, Hasim, Munna, Randeep, and Shaukat — as co-conspirators.The accused told police that the robbery had been planned in advance. "We decided to trap someone using a fake name. Srishti made the call pretending to be Meenakshi," one of them told investigators during interrogation. Following this, police added charges under the Arms Act against three accused and submitted a chargesheet naming 11 individuals.Those named in the chargesheet were: Nazim Ansari from Khirzabad, Yamunanagar, Haryana; Sharafat, Nawab, Shaukat and Hasim from Dhakrani, Vikasnagar; Tasleem, currently residing in Bijnor; Sajid from Vikasnagar; Gurpreet alias Gudia from Jagadhri, Haryana; Srishti and Munna from Yamunanagar, and Randeep Singh from Paonta Sahib.However, during trial, the court found several procedural gaps in the investigation. It noted that the complainant, Sharma, was not present when the gold chain was recovered. He also denied withdrawing money from the ATM, and no CCTV or transaction proof was submitted. There were no independent witnesses during the knife seizure either. Most crucially, the police failed to submit any call detail records or WhatsApp chat history between the complainant and the woman who had lured him to Herbertpur.Observing that the prosecution had failed to conclusively establish the chain of events and link all accused to the crime beyond reasonable doubt, the court gave them the benefit of doubt and acquitted all 11.