New Delhi: A woman, charged with strangulating her nine-hour-old daughter in a hospital has been acquitted by a court, which noted that the key witnesses had turned hostile and the prosecution had lifted no fingerprints to substantiate the accusation.
The court absolved Savitri, 38, a resident of North-West Delhi, of the charges of killing her baby in a public hospital on December 12, 2004, nine hours after her delivery.
The court, after the examination of 17 prosecution witnesses, noted that Sunita, a midwife, who helped in the delivery of baby at Mahrishi Balmiki hospital, had deposed that she did not see anything at the time of incident as she was sleeping.
Jaya Vohra, a staff nurse, who was also listed as witness, on the other hand, was declared hostile after she testified that she had not noticed any injury sign on the infant.
The prosecution case suffered a setback as the court pointed out that no fingerprint was lifted from the body of the deceased baby to prove the guilt of the accused.
The defence counsel, on the other hand, argued that there was no eye-witness to the incident and said no other witness had supported the case.
"The woman was under the influence of sedatives after the delivery so she was totally unaware about the happenings," he pleaded.
A case was registered against Savitri on December 12, 2004 after it was found that a baby girl, delivered by her on the previous night, had died with red mark on her neck.
A post-mortem was conducted, which had revealed the baby had died due to strangulation, the prosecution said. The woman, after her arrest, had recorded a disclosure statement allegedly admitting that she had killed the new-born baby as she already had a daughter and one more could have required more money for marriage and her education, it said.
Rejecting her disclosure statement for "having no evidence value under the law," the court said that the prosecution had failed to complete the chain of events, which could link the accused with the commission of crime.
With inputs from PTI
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