PANCHKULA, MAY 18 – An Uttar Pradesh resident has been acquitted by a local court of the murder of a woman whose body was discovered with 17 sharp-edged weapon wounds near the Chandigarh railway station four years ago.
The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Bikramjit Aroura cleared the accused, Sameem, after concluding that the prosecution failed to establish a definitive link between him and the victim, Rozina Begum. The judicial ruling noted that the state’s case lacked eyewitnesses, reliable circumstantial evidence, and foundational forensic analysis.
“There was no eyewitness to the occurrence, nor any reliable last-seen evidence linking the accused to the deceased,” Judge Aroura stated in the ruling.
The court further noted that digital and physical evidence failed to support the state’s claims, asserting that recorded closed-circuit television footage did not place the accused with the victim, and investigators failed to perform fingerprint or DNA testing on the recovered weapon.
The victim, a mother of three who worked as a private cleaner at the Mauli Jagran Police Station, was found dead on January 15, 2022, near Line No. 8 in the railway yard. A medical board at the Sector 6 Civil Hospital in Panchkula affirmed that she died from shock and hemorrhage caused by 17 incised wounds extending from her neck to her leg.
While the initial police report was filed against unidentified suspects, the victim’s husband subsequently accused Sameem of killing her following a personal dispute.
The prosecution’s narrative relied heavily on an e-rickshaw driver, Shyam Lal, who was presented as a critical “last-seen” witness. However, during cross-examination, Lal retracted his initial statements, denying that any male passenger had traveled with the victim toward the station. He asserted that police personnel had unlawfully detained him, used physical force, and compelled him to sign a blank document.
Similarly, a purported extrajudicial confession fell apart when a former village head, Kartar Singh, testified that Sameem was already in police custody and showed signs of physical abuse when the statement was prepared by officers.
Defense counsel Sameer Sethi argued that the complete absence of scientific tracking, coupled with compromised witness testimonies, left the prosecution with no viable case. The court sustained the defense arguments, noting that investigators had not even determined the victim’s blood group to match stains on the recovered items, necessitating an absolute acquittal.
