Acquitted After 10 Years: Murder Charge Dropped

After spending over ten years as an undertrial prisoner, a Pune sessions court has acquitted Nagnath Tukaram Manjule, 46, of the murder of his wife. The victim's body was discovered in the Karha river near Saswad on February 5, 2009. For nearly seven years, the case remained undetected as police could not establish the victim's identity. Initially, a court accepted a police report stating the case was true but without identifiable culprits or sufficient evidence for a trial.

The turning point occurred on December 30, 2015, when Manjule allegedly confessed to relatives at a wedding that he had killed his wife due to frequent quarrels. This led the police to reopen the investigation and arrest Manjule on January 29, 2016. The entire case against him was predicated on this alleged extra-judicial confession.

Additional sessions judge SD Kulkarni highlighted that the prosecution failed to provide any corroborative evidence. The court noted deficiencies in the investigation, including the absence of seized vehicle evidence, neighbor testimonies, or any recovery connecting Manjule to the crime. The testimony of the key witness, Manjule's brother-in-law, was deemed unreliable due to strained relations with the accused's sister. The court concluded that the prosecution did not establish the confession was voluntary or made in a sound state of mind, making it unsafe to base a conviction solely on this evidence. Finding the evidence insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the court granted Manjule the benefit of doubt and acquitted him of all charges.