Woman charged with attempt to murder of daughter’s eve-teaser acquitted

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: A 32-year-old woman who was accused of conspiring and attempting to murder an eve teaser has been acquitted by the High Court.

The HC upheld a trial court’s order which had said the prosecution had failed to prove that she was responsible for the attack on her daughter’s eve teaser. The accused is Mousina, a resident of Yurab Nagar in Bengaluru.

One Syed was in the habit of eve teasing Mousina’s daughter and a quarrel had taken place between them. On December 12, 2011 when Syed was with his friends in a park when two men with “a macho and a button knife’ attacked him.

Syed sustained injuries on his right wrist, left palm, left shoulder, buttocks, waist, right knee and other parts of the body. Syed was shifted to a hospital by his friends and his brother registered a police complaint.

The police investigation charged Mousina as the accused number one and the other two assailants as accused numbers two and three. Case was split Since the two attackers were not found, the case was split and the trial was conducted against Mousina.

In 2016, the Trial Court acquitted Mousina for the offence punishable under Section 307 (attempt to murder) and conspiracy. The State challenged the acquittal in the High Court the same year. The HC bench of Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar and Justice G Basavaraja gave their judgment on the appeal recently.

The HC in its judgment said that the Trial Court need not have considered the evidence against accused numbers two and three in this case. “What needs to be stated is that only accused No.1 faced trial. The case against accused No.2 and 3 was split up. The trial court ought to have confined the assessment of evidence only with regard to accused No.1. The impugned judgment shows that the trial judge has discussed the evidence made available by the prosecution as against accused No.2 and 3 also which was totally unwarranted. However, the ultimate conclusion drawn by the court to acquit accused No 1 is to be confirmed,” the HC said.

The HC said that even if the evidence of one of the witnesses that Mousina was watching the attack on Syed from the terrace of her house is believable, “she becomes an abettor for that reason.” But she was charged under ‘attempt to murder.’

The police had also failed to examine the daughter of Mousina. “The whole prosecution case is in the background of the teasing of the daughter of accused No 1. Therefore she should have been examined as a witness. The charge sheet shows that she has not at all been cited as a witness. The name of the daughter of accused No 1 is also not disclosed,” the HC said.

The wound certificate said that three persons had attacked Syed, but the prosecution case was that he was assaulted by two persons.

“This is also one of the reasons to doubt the prosecution theory with regard to the involvement of accused No 1 in the commission of crime. With this kind of evidence, it is not safe to hold accused No 1 even as an abettor. Hence there is no merit in the appeal, the appeal is dismissed,” the HC said. (CRLA 1937/2016)