Gujarat: High court lets off dad on death row for pregnant teen’s rape and murder

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat high court has acquitted a father sentenced to death by a Surat trial court for the rape and murder of his pregnant teenage daughter, citing procedural lapses for refusing to accept the DNA report that led to his conviction as “credible evidence”.

The case involves a 14-year-old migrant girl from Odisha whose body was found on Surat’s Dumas beach on June 29, 2017. An autopsy revealed she was pregnant and had been strangled to death. After her father’s arrest based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution relied on DNA matching of the foetus and the accused to build what became the “cornerstone” of his Jan 2020 conviction under IPC and the Pocso Act.

The case was turned on its head when the state govt sought the high court’s confirmation of the death sentence. “The prosecution failed to prove all necessary circumstances by reliable and clinching evidence, which would constitute a complete chain without a snap, as would permit a conclusion other than the one of the guilt of the accused,” the division bench of Justices Ilesh Vora and R T Vachhani said.

The judges ruled that DNA samples of the victim’s unborn baby and the accused may have been “compromised” due to multiple lapses, including a 13-day delay in submitting these to the designated forensic laboratory and failure to preserve highly sensitive biological material in an ice box.

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