Solving Crime: How burn scars on man’s body helped Mumbai police solve Preeti Rathi acid attack case

On May 2, 2013, Preeti, her father and two other relatives alighted from the Garib Rath Express at Bandra Terminus. They were in Mumbai as Preeti had been selected as a secondary lieutenant (nursing) at INHS Asvini at Colaba. Just as she alighted at the station, a man, with his face covered with a handkerchief, flung acid on her and fled. Preeti died less than a month later, on June 1.

In Delhi, enquiring about the railway tickets of the Rathis and the relatives who travelled with them, the police found a clue. One of the relatives had disclosed to Preeti’s family that she had spoken to her about Panwar. The concerned relative, who later became a witness in the case, told the police that Preeti had confided that Panwar had asked her why she was going to Mumbai and had claimed that it would not be good if she did so.

The relative told the police that Preeti had confided in her that Panwar had once stopped her and proposed marriage. She said she had spurned the proposal and asked him to focus on his career first. The relative said she had taken this conversation with Preeti lightly until she revealed it to the Rathis after her death.

Armed with this information, the police arrested Panwar on January 2, 2014. A hotel management graduate, Panwar was a neighbour of Rathi in the Bhakra Beas Management Board quarters in Delhi. He was already on the police radar as Preeti, who was shown sketches of the accused, had named him as a suspect before her death.

The police found burn injuries on Panwar’s hands, which confirmed their suspicions, and after the medical experts opined that it was caused due to a corrosive substance, it became clinching evidence in the case.

Panwar gave evasive answers to queries pertaining to his whereabouts on the date of the incident and was brought to Mumbai on January 17, 2014. He was sent to the state-run J J Hospital for medical examination to get an opinion regarding the old healed scars on his forearms, which were found as caused by secondary drops of acid. As per the seller’s statement referred in court order, Panwar purchased acid under the pretext of starting a business in the name of ‘Ankur batteries’.

On September 8, 2016, a sessions court convicted Panwar of Preeti’s murder and sentenced him to death. On June 12, 2019, the Bombay High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, considering the “mitigating circumstance” that Panwar was a 23-year-old “young boy” at the time of the incident with no past criminal record. The court observed the case would not fall under the ‘rarest of the rare’ category to award the death penalty.