Gurgaon: A dispute over an alleged mobile phone recording turned fatal when a man stabbed his associate to death. Two-and-a-half years after the incident, a city court recently convicted Ozer Khan alias Wazer (35) for the murder of 22-year-old Toqir Alam, holding that the prosecution proved the charge beyond a reasonable doubt through consistent eyewitness testimony, medical evidence and forensic reports.The case dates back to Oct 25, 2023, when police received information from Max Hospital in Sector 29 that Toqir had been brought in with stab injuries and was declared dead. His brother, Mohd Mehtab, later lodged an FIR stating that a day before the incident, Ozer had confronted Toqir over an alleged mobile recording and threatened to kill him. Both men worked together as painters.Police said the accused, the victim and three eyewitnesses — Mehtab, Azad Khan and Shamsher Alam — were co-workers and were drinking together near their locality in Sector 29 when an argument broke out over the alleged recording. The victim maintained that no such recording existed, but the dispute escalated and led to the stabbing.Public prosecutor Sumit Saini told the court that Ozer attacked Toqir with a knife, inflicting multiple stab wounds. He then fled the spot. The three eyewitnesses testified that they saw the accused assault the victim. Their statements, Saini said, were consistent and corroborated by medical evidence, which confirmed that the injuries were sufficient to cause death.Counsel for the complainant, Vivek Kumar, said forensic reports established the presence of blood on the recovered knife and on the accused’s clothes. “The weapon was linked to Ozer through a shopkeeper who identified the knife as one sold to the accused against his Aadhaar card. In all, 16 witnesses, including medical experts and the investigating officer, were examined during the trial,” said Kumar.Defence counsel Archana Chouhan argued that the accused had been falsely implicated and claimed the eyewitnesses were unreliable as they were related to the deceased. The defence also questioned the recovery of the weapon and claimed that the motive was unproven. However, the court rejected these contentions, noting that the testimonies were consistent, credible and aligned with medical and forensic findings. Minor discrepancies, the judge said, were natural in traumatic situations and did not affect the core prosecution case.Additional sessions judge Puneet Sehgal held that the chain of evidence left no room for doubt and that the assault was intentional. It convicted Ozer under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.During sentencing, the court balanced the accused’s personal circumstances against the gravity of the offence, holding that societal interest and deterrence must prevail. Ozer was sentenced to life imprisonment, fined Rs 25,000, and directed to pay Rs 1 lakh compensation to the victim’s family under Section 357(1) CrPC.The order also reiterated that the “credibility of natural eyewitnesses cannot be doubted merely because they are related to the victim,” emphasising that their testimony stood reinforced by medical and scientific material.The case, the court noted, represented a “clear and complete chain of circumstances establishing the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.”
