Mumbai: Bombay HC releases man on bail as voice samples not collected properly
OrissaPOST
The Bombay High Court has granted bail to a guy after learning that the voice sample used to determine his involvement in a video clip where he and his friends are alleged to have killed and burned a man was improperly obtained.
Saurabh Raju, 21, was recently granted bail in a case brought by the Niphad police station in Nashik, according to Justice Prithviraj Chavan. He and his friends were accused of killing someone and destroying evidence.
The day of Raju’s arrest was June 18, 2019. The session court denied his request for bail in November 2020. He went to the HC to ask for bail and to contest the sessions court’s ruling.
Raju was detained after a police officer who had his phone confiscated in another case filed a case, according to additional public prosecutor Amit Palkar. The police officer discovered a video clip where Raju is seen pouring gasoline or some caustic material into something that was on fire.
Investigations led to the discovery that the dead was Sanjay Shewale, 47, a vagrant who used to act like a brother to Raju’s mother and was related to him. Because of this, Shewale had earned Raju’s ire, and on May 18, 2019 at around 11 p.m., Raju and his pals attacked Shewale with a sickle, killed him, and then set his body afire with gasoline. They even allegedly recorded the incident on tape.
Although the DNA profile matched with Shewale’s parents, Nikam claimed Raju had “no nexus” with the crime and that the sickle recovered at his request was “sans blood stains” when the court pointed out that the investigating officer had found burnt pieces of bones.
Raju was required to recite text that was mostly inculpatory in nature so that the prosecution could obtain a sample of his voice. Nikam cited a 2016 Supreme Court decision that permits voice samples but specifies that they must be taken from words, not phrases of incriminating text.
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