No forensic, gun mismatch: Calcutta High Court acquits two people in 2014 murder

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court pulled up the police for producing a weapon in court that did not match the gun allegedly seized in a 2014 murder case, and for failing to send the firearm or cartridges for forensic examination — lapses that contributed to the acquittal of two Murshidabad men who had earlier been sentenced to life.

The Bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Rai Chattopadhyay noted that the gun the police claimed to have recovered was recorded as being about 12 inches long, while the gun produced before the trial court measured only 8 inches. The Investigating Officer admitted that he had not sent either the weapon or the empty cartridges for any forensic (FSL) test. The court also recorded that the arms expert had stated that a conclusive opinion could be formed on whether the cartridges were fired from that weapon had they been examined — a link the police failed to establish.

According to the prosecution, the victim was returning home with his wife on a scooter after attending a relative’s last rites when two men on a motorcycle stopped them and fired multiple shots, killing him. The trial court convicted two locals on the strength of the wife’s testimony and certain recoveries. The High Court found serious gaps in the investigation. The inquest was recorded as starting at 1:15 pm, although the police diary and FIR showed the receipt of information about the death only around 1:25 pm — an “impossible” sequence the investigators never explained.

The FIR was lodged shortly after 1:25 pm, and the autopsy began at 2 pm and ended at 3 pm despite the hospital being 23 kilometres away. The Bench said these tight timelines were left unexplained. A bystander who later claimed to have seen the attackers never disclosed this to the police during the investigation. Several prosecution witnesses were themselves accused in an earlier murder involving the accused men’s family, a pattern the court said remained unaddressed.

The victim’s wife had given only a basic description of the attackers and later corrected her initial claim that her husband’s purse had been snatched. Holding that the identity of the assailants was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the Bench acquitted both men and ordered their release unless wanted in any other case.