Mumbai, Feb 3 (PTI) Scattered bunches of hair found at the crime spot proved to be “clinching evidence” to show Mumbai teenager Jhanvi Kukreja was brutally assaulted before her murder in 2021, a city court held while sentencing her friend Shree Jogdhankar to life imprisonment in the case.
The court, however, acquitted the victim’s other friend and co-accused in the case, Diya Padalkar, noting her “complicity in the commission of the crime” was doubtful.
The sentencing was pronounced on Saturday (January 31), while a detailed court order was made available on Tuesday (February 3).
Kukreja (19) was killed on January 1, 2021, in a building in Khar in the western part of the metropolis while attending a New Year’s Eve party. Kukreja was assaulted on the staircase and murdered after attending the party on the building’s terrace, according to police.
Police have alleged that the 19-year-old was dragged down the stairs from the fifth floor after a fight broke out among the three friends over Jogdhankar’s intimacy with Padalkar.
Additional Sessions Judge Satyanarayan Navandar on Saturday found Jogdhankar guilty of murder under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code.
In the reasoned order, the court concluded that a violent scuffle erupted on the staircase between the 8th and 2nd floors of the building as the group left the terrace.
While there were no eyewitnesses to the actual killing, the judge relied on a “complete chain of circumstances”. The court rejected the defence’s theories of an accidental fall or suicide, noting that ogdhankar’s failure to raise an alarm or help the victim was highly incriminating.
“These arguments cannot be accepted. The mental state of the deceased was not such as would lead her to commit suicide. There was no reason for a young girl to end her life,” the court ruled.
It further asserted if the incident had been suicidal or accidental, the conduct of accused No. 1 (Jogdhankar) would have been entirely different.
He would not have left the spot without attending to the deceased. Instead, the accused would have raised an alarm, called other partygoers, and made efforts to save her life, the court observed.
The judge pointed out that the victim would not have “sustained numerous injuries as noted in the post-mortem report” had it been an accidental fall or suicide.
Further, the court reasoned that there would also have been no reason for large amounts of her hair to be found scattered at the scene.
Bunches of hair found at the spot and on the staircases of the second and first floors indicate a fierce assault by the accused, it noted.
“The scattered bunches of hair are clinching evidence of violence, showing how brutally she was assaulted just before her fall,” the court stated.
The defence argument of delay in filing an FIR also failed to find a favour as the court insisted that proper course of investigation was adopted by the police machinery in the case.
Police officers first gathered the material from the preliminary inquiry with the witnesses, who were present in the party and then after arriving at the tentative conclusion, the FIR was registered, the court said.
No intention to delay the registration of the FIR can be attributed either to the police machinery or to the victim in the case, it added.
The court, considering the evidence on record, said it appears the victim was pushed or thrown from the staircase, resulting in fatal head injuries.
The accused, during the fight, furiously assaulted Kukreja, pulled her hair, and ultimately pushed her from the staircase, the court said.
The judge noted that if someone was pushed or thrown from the second floor, there was every possibility of causing death.
Hence, the act done by Jogdhankar “amounts to murder,” the judge ruled.
The court found that post-incident conduct of the accused No. 1 played a vital role in the case.
It pointed out that the accused did not give details of his injuries and provided false history to the doctor at the hospital about the wounds.
When contacted by friends after the incident, Jogdhankar remained “cool-headed and indifferent,” failing to mention the victim’s fall, the court said.
“All these activities of the accused No. 1 post-incident are suggestive of his culpability,” the court ruled.
On co-accused Padalkar’s role, the sessions judge said the prosecution has established her presence at the crime spot, but her “complicity in the commission of the crime” was doubtful.
No common intention between the two accused to commit murder has been established, thus she deserves to be given the benefit of doubt, stated the court. PTI AVI RSY
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