Pune Crime Files: How a palm print at crime scene proved rape, murder of software engineer by her colleague

When her friends reached her house at around 11.30 pm, they found her lying in a pool of blood. Soon the police were informed. A team from the area police station, then headed by senior police inspector Sheshrao Suryawanshi, launched a probe into the murder case.

While the colleague denied his involvement in the crime, a palm print retrieved from the crime scene turned out to be crucial evidence against him.

Finding a motive

The Pune police said both the victim and the accused hailed from Bhopal and had known each other since their college days. They were in a relationship but broke up a few months before the murder, after which the accused was allegedly not happy and insisted upon continuing the relationship, said the police.

According to a witness who deposed before the court, the woman had lodged a complaint against the man at the IT company where they worked. Enraged by the complaint against him, the accused allegedly warned of taking revenge, the witness said. The accused was also allegedly annoyed because of her friendship with another colleague.

The police said the accused allegedly went to Bhopal after the murder, where he “surrendered” before a police station, from where he was arrested on October 22, 2008.

‘Guilty mind of the accused’

The man claimed innocence and said he was not present at the crime scene. However, fingerprint experts confirmed that a palm print found on a wall at the crime scene tallied with the palm print slip of the accused. This alone was “sufficient to establish the presence of the accused at the spot” at the time of the murder, argued additional public prosecutor Heera Bari in the court.

The accused also denied raping the victim. Though no semen was detected, the court considered the prosecution’s arguments regarding blood stains on the clothes of the accused and the postmortem report that suggested the victim was raped.

The prosecution examined about 26 witnesses during the trial. After hearing the arguments of prosecution and defence lawyers, additional sessions judge L L Yenkar held the accused guilty of rape and murder of the victim, under sections 376 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

While observing that if the accused was innocent, the court said, “What was the necessity for him to leave Pune and go to Bhopal to surrender before the police at Bhopal? It is the guilty mind of the accused, which caused him to surrender before the police. There are various incriminating circumstances against the accused to show his involvement in the commission of offences. The most important circumstances are that his clothes were found stained with blood, and his palm print was found on the wall of the spot where the incident had occurred. However, the accused has not explained any of the incriminating circumstances….”