Mumbai: 36-year-old acquitted of 'girlfriend's' murder

A Mumbai Sessions court yesterday acquitted a 36-year-old man on charges of strangulating and killing his alleged girlfriend, and burning her body in 2013 at Powai.

Sessions Court Judge
PR Bhavake acquitted interior designer Gaurav Barua. He had been charged under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code.

Rajendra Sampat lodged a missing complaint of his daughter Vibhuti on September 11, 2013. In his complaint he said, two days earlier she had gone to work, but did not return home. The complaint was filed at Vanrai Police Station.

A day before the complaint was lodged, police had found the dead body of a woman, half burnt, and with its legs chopped off.

Sampat identified the body as that of his daughter, through her metal necklace and bangles. The Medical Officer, after the post mortem, opined that the death was due to "head injury in a severely charred body."

During investigation, it transpired that Vibhuti had a talk with accused Gaurav Barua prior to her death. The accused was interrogated by the Crime Branch, Dahisar (E). Police alleged that Vibhuti was Barua's girlfriend and he killed her by strangulating her in his house in Juhu, after a quarrel.

It was further alleged that in order to destroy the evidence, Barua put the body in a cardboard box and carried it in his car, to dispose it off.