Lucknow: A Barabanki court has acquitted four men accused of murdering two Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel posted as security guards at a district cooperative bank in 2016, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt due to serious gaps in investigation and lack of scientific evidence.Additional sessions judge Asad Ahmad Hashmi acquitted Kaleem Qureshi, Sarwar, Pankaj Verma and Wahajuddin alias Badshah in the case registered at Kotwali Nagar police station under Sections 396 (dacoity with murder) and 412 (dacoity). The judgment was delivered on Tuesday.The case dates back to April 5, 2016, when PRD guards Deshraj and Om Prakash were found murdered on the district cooperative bank premises. Police suspected an attempted robbery after finding bank locks damaged. An FIR was lodged against unidentified people on a complaint by bank employee Shatrughan Prasad.Ten days later, police claimed to have cracked the case and arrested five accused, including the four who were acquitted. One accused, being a juvenile, was tried separately before the Juvenile Justice Board.The court, however, found that investigators failed to establish a credible chain of evidence linking the accused to the crime. A key factor was the absence of forensic reports connecting the allegedly recovered weapons and blood-stained clothes to the two slain guards. Although police claimed recoveries were made on the accused’s disclosure, no forensic laboratory report was produced to prove that blood traces matched the victims.The judgment also highlighted the prosecution’s failure to present CCTV-related evidence. Investigators said that CCTV footage was examined and that DVRs were removed from the bank by the assailants. Yet neither CCTV footage nor any technical or forensic report relating to the recovered DVRs was produced in court.The investigation established that no cash was stolen from the bank, the safe and lockers remained intact, and even the rifles issued to the deceased guards were not taken. According to the prosecution, only DVRs, adapters and a mobile phone belonging to one of the guards went missing.The court noted discrepancies in the recovery process, including issues with sealing, labelling and documentation of the alleged murder weapon, a khukri.Observing that criminal convictions cannot rest on assumptions or incomplete evidence, the court held that the prosecution had failed to conclusively prove that the accused committed the murders or attempted dacoity, leading to their acquittal after a decade-long trial.
