Court Acquits Five Men in 2015 Kidnapping Case

It acquitted the accused persons, Rizwan, Rohit, Salim, Gulzar and Shera, saying "the prosecution miserably failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt." According to the prosecution, Rajendra Gupta was kidnapped on July 12, 2015 and a ransom call demanding Rs 30,000 was made to his son-in-law.

The court said the prosecution's case hinged on the testimonies of Rajendra Gupta, his son-in-law and complainant Anil Kumar and son Pradeep Gupta. But the trio did not support the prosecution's version and were declared hostile on various aspects, it said.

Even if their turning hostile on the points were ignored, their remaining testimonies were also not of "sterling character" to prove the accused's guilt, the court said. The court underlined several contradictions in Kumar's and Gupta's statements, including regarding the "genesis" of the case, while pointing out that Pradeep Gupta categorically denied being informed about the ransom call by his brother-in-law.

It said Pradeep Gupta made improvements in his testimony regarding being shifted from one place to another after the alleged kidnapping. "The improvement in his (Gupta's) testimony coupled with his explanation offered for not raising an alarm, while he was being abducted or was shifted from one place of confinement to another, that too in heavily crowded area, in broad daylight, firstly on motorcycle and then in an autorickshaw, does not inspire any confidence," the court said.

It said according to the prosecution, Gupta was lured by the abductors, after he received a phone call from a woman, who asked him to come to Khajuri Chowk in northeast Delhi but during his cross-examination, he denied receiving any call from a woman. "Serious doubts are created around the credibility of the victim as a witness," the court said.

It said the "improvements and the inherent contradictions" in the testimonies were not "imaginative or trivial" and they in fact dented the entire prosecution's case. It said the "glaring contradictions" in the testimonies were further accentuated by the doubts regarding the documents submitted by the prosecution, such as some video clippings and call detail records.

The video clippings "opened a pandora's box for the prosecution's case and instead of corroborating the testimonies of the witnesses, the said clippings have struck a fatal blow on the entire prosecution story," the court said. It observed that the investigating officer (IO) conducted a "shoddy investigation" by not probing some vital aspects of the case and that his investigation about the role of a woman was "shrouded in suspicion." A court in New Delhi acquitted five men in a 2015 kidnapping case, citing improbable evidence and contradictions in witness testimonies.The Khajuri Khas police station had registered a case against the accused persons under the penal provisions for kidnapping for ransom, criminal conspiracy and common intention.