Bombay HC grants bail to Mumbai man accused of killing daughter over her marriage – Times of India

Bombay high court

MUMBAI: A year after his arrest, Bombay high court granted bail to a Matunga man accused of murdering his 20-year- old daughter for having married against his wishes. Justice PD Naik on Friday granted Rajkumar Chaurasiya, 56, who runs a pan-beedi shop, bail of Rs 25,000 as he observed that it was a circumstantial case with no prima facie evidence of his presence at the site of the ‘incident’ after her body was discovered by a road side in Ghatkopar, last July.
In February while refusing him bail, Mumbai sessions court the prosecutor said the “brutal murder’’ was a case of “honour killing’’ as it was a love marriage against his will.
The police case was that he killed his daughter when his son-in-law wanted to take her to their native place. He allegedly called her to a spot, murdered her with a sickle and tossed her body at a Ghatkopar footpath. A day after her body was found, police arrested him on July 15, 2019 and recovered a sickle as the ‘murder weapon.’
The HC found some force in his lawyer Ganesh Gupta’s submission that there was a discrepancy in the statement leading to recovery of weapon as the accused said it was a ‘knife’ and also in identifying the accused as there was no identification parade carried out.
The assistant public prosecutor Rujuta Ambekar’s argued that there was a “strong motive ‘’ for him to commit the crime and that there were several phone calls between the accused and the victim series of phone calls. The HC however said since she was his daughter, “no adverse inference can be drawn with regard to such calls.’’
Gupta also argued that the man has no criminal antecedents, had “cordial relations’ with his late daughter and sickle seller was shown the accused at the police station. He also said the tower location at best shows his presence at Kurla and not at Ghatkopar, as police say, where her body was found, as police say.