A Panchkula court has acquitted an Uttar Pradesh resident, Sameem, in the murder of a woman whose body was found with 17 wounds near Chandigarh railway station.On the morning of January 15, 2022, Rozina Begum — wife of Chhotu Khan, a physically disabled resident of Mauli Jagran, Chandigarh, and mother to three children — was found dead near Line No. 8 at Chandigarh Railway Station yard.Her body bore 17 ante-mortem incised wounds caused by a sharp-edged weapon, running from the left side of her neck down to her leg. The cause of death, confirmed by a board of doctors at Civil Hospital, Sector-6, Panchkula, was shock and hemorrhage from those injuries.Rozina worked as a private cleaner at Mauli Jagran Police Station. On January 14, 2022, she attended a bhandara (free community meal) at the station. Around 3:30 pm, she called her son Arif, asking him to bring food; he returned home by 5 pm.When Rozina still had not come home that night, her daughter Roshni went to the police station and was told that her mother had left at 6 pm. Her mobile was switched off. By the following morning, a constable arrived at the family’s door with news of her death.The FIR was registered on January 15, 2022, against unknown persons. Thereafter, on January 30, Chhotu Khan submitted a subsequent complaint alleging that Sameem, taking advantage of his physical disability, had developed illicit relations with his wife and, due to resentment, had murdered her.The trialThe prosecution claimed that Shyam Lal, an e-rickshaw driver, had stated that Sameem boarded his vehicle near a gurudwara after two women passengers got down and travelled with the deceased towards the railway station. He was projected as the last-seen witness. However, in court he retracted his statement, saying no male had boarded or deboarded the e-rickshaw with the deceased.When confronted with his police statements, he stated that the police had illegally detained and beaten him, and that his thumb impression was taken forcibly on a blank paper.The prosecution also relied on an alleged extrajudicial confession made by Sameem before ex-Sarpanch Kartar Singh, followed by his surrender before police.However, Kartar Singh told the court that Sameem was already in police custody when he was called to the police station. He added that the accused was weeping, not walking properly, and appeared to have been beaten by police. He further stated that the police had already written his statement and that he was not allowed to read it before signing.Defence counsel Sameer Sethi argued that, in view of the serious contradictions, unreliable extra-judicial confession, hostile witnesses, doubtful recoveries, absence of scientific linkage, and complete failure of the prosecution to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused is entitled to the benefit of doubt.No DNA, no fingerprints, no blood groupWhile acquitting the accused, the court of the Additional District and Session Judge, Bikramjit Aroura, said that there was no eyewitness to the occurrence, nor any reliable last-seen evidence linking the accused to the deceased.The judgment said that the CCTV footage produced on record also did not show the presence of the accused with the deceased at the relevant time. It added that the alleged weapon had already been recovered before the arrest of the accused, no fingerprint or DNA examination was conducted, and even the blood group of the deceased was not determined during the investigation.The prosecution alleged the accused had an illicit relationship with the deceased and killed her because she was blackmailing him. But the court found that not one witness supported this.