Man acquitted of charges of abducting, raping sister-in-law

A man has been acquitted of the charges of abducting and raping his 19-year-old sister-in-law by a Delhi court which said hostility of the girl and her mother has knocked out the prosecution’s case. A fast track court presided by additional sessions judge M.C. Gupta acquitted Sultanpuri resident Sunil of all the charges, saying as far as his involvement in the commission of offences of rape and abduction is concerned, it has not been sufficiently established by reliable evidence.

“I find that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The hostility of the girl and her mother has knocked out the bottom of the case of prosecution,” the judge said.

According to the prosecution, the accused had enticed his wife’s sister and had raped her in a park after abducting her from her house in July last year.

The girl had resiled from her statement in the court and said that the accused, her brother-in-law, was also residing in the same locality and she had gone out with him for sometime but he had not raped her. They had returned home after half-an-hour but her mother had started an argument with them on why did she go with him and also lodged an FIR against the accused, she had said.

The girl’s mother too had deposed similar facts in the court and they both were declared hostile. “There is nothing on the record to indicate that on July 19, 2012,... The accused abducted the girl, aged around 19 years, with intent to secretly and wrongfully confining and seducing her for illicit intercourse and thereafter he took her in a park where he committed rape upon her against her will and without her consent,” the court said.