A police inspector in Gujarat has been convicted of murdering his live-in partner in a case built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, despite the absence of a body, a DNA match, and testimony from more than 40 of the 128 witnesses examined.
The 8th Additional Sessions Court at Karjan in Vadodara sentenced police inspector AA Desai to life imprisonment for the murder of Sweety Patel and for causing disappearance of evidence, along with a fine of Rs 2 lakh, according to a report in The Indian Express.
Co-accused hotelier and politician Kiritsinh Jadeja was convicted of helping dispose of evidence and sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment with a Rs 2 lakh fine.
Citing the prosecution, the Express reported that Desai and Patel, who were both already married to other people, had entered a relationship that his family knew nothing about.
The case alleged that a dispute over Desai's refusal to divorce his wife led to Patel being strangled inside their locked house on the night of June 4-5, 2021, after which her body was driven to an abandoned hotel owned by Jadeja and burnt.
The outlet reported that burnt bone fragments recovered from the site did not match Desai and Patel's son in DNA testing, but melted gold ornaments recovered from the same spot were separately matched by forensic officials to jewellery seen in photographs of Patel.
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According to the report, the case was complicated by the fact that Patel's brother, initially the complainant, later turned hostile in court, as did dozens of independent panch witnesses.
The judgment reportedly held that hostile witnesses alone do not undermine a recovery if the investigating officer's testimony remains credible, and pointed to the brother's shifting stance as itself indicating Desai's influence.
The court's final order directed that Patel's seized documents be handed to her son, while other valuables be forfeited to the state.
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