Murder with rodenticide-tea poisoning:  HC denies bail to duo accused of conspiracy

The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has declined to grant bail to two persons accused facing trial in a case involving the murder of a person allegedly due to poisoning in 2020 in Uri, Baramulla.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar rejected the bail application of Basharat Ahmad Abbasi and another accused, who are facing trial under sections 302 (murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC before the court of Additional Sessions Judge, Baramulla.

Abbasi and another accused are allegedly involved in the conspiracy for alluring a man to the residence of a woman he wanted to marry, where he was poisoned to death by the woman’s brother and sister, according to prosecution. 

The prosecution story begins with the inquest proceedings following the information the Police Station Bijhama received on January 24, 2020 that an unidentified person was lying unconscious on the roadside near Bela Reshiwari bridge in north Kashmir’s Uri. Meanwhile some passersby had shifted the body to Sub-District Hospital Uri, where doctors declared him “brought dead”.

Police took the body in custody, initiated inquest proceedings and later identified the deceased as Muhammad Syed Abbasi. After the postmortem examination, the body was handed over to the family for burial. 

With postmortem and subsequent investigation revealing that the deceased had died due to poisoning, an FIR (02/2020) under sections 302(murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC was registered at Police Station Bijhama.

The investigation revealed that the deceased had been in a relationship for nearly five years with a woman and both intended to marry. However, the woman’s family members opposed their proposed marriage. The woman’s sister and brother allegedly conspired with the accused Abassi and another accused man to eliminate the deceased. 

The accused Abbasi and the other man allegedly lured the victim to the house of the brother and sister of the woman with whom he wanted to marry.  He was allegedly brought there on the assurance that his marriage would be arranged there. He was served with Lipton tea mixed with rodent killer poison. After consuming the tea, the deceased left the house and was later found unconscious near the bridge at Reshiwari, where he succumbed to poisoning eventually.

The accused Abbasi and another had based their bail plea on the contention that they are in jail for last five years, the prosecution case rests solely on circumstantial evidence and that the death of the victim was a result of suicide and not homicide.

Moreover, they contended that forensic evidence weakened the prosecution case because the poison recovered from the kitchen of the accused differed from the poison detected in the viscera of the deceased. 

The court observed as “misconceived” the contention of counsel for Abbasi and the other accused that there is no material on record of the trial court that would connect the petitioners with the alleged crime.

The statements of prosecution witnesses, particularly the statements of prosecution witnesses Altaf Hussain and Muhammad Rafiq, reveal that they have, prima facie, supported the prosecution version, the court noted.

“The deceased immediately before his death contacted PW Altaf Hussain on his cell phone and asked him to record the conversation. During the conversation, the deceased clearly told him that he had been tricked by the petitioners whereafter he was poisoned. PW-21 Mohammad Rafiq has confirmed the same in his statement. The investigating agency has collected the call data record and has also seized the cell phone of PW Altaf Hussain, in which the conversation was recorded. The said cell phone has been sent to CFSL and as per the report submitted by CFSL, there is no editing in the conversation”

In response to the submission that in keeping with the forensic evidence the recovery from the kitchen of the accused was Zinc Phosphide whereas the poison detected in the viscera of the deceased was found to be organophosphorus insecticide, the court said: “ As to whether the poison detected in the viscera of the deceased was the same kind of poison which was recovered by the police from the kitchen of the two accused may not be of much relevance at this stage for the purposes of considering the prayer of the petitioners for grant of bail”.