Kerala HC acquits man on death row for murder of Kundara native Alice

Kochi: How can one turn a blind eye to the fact that a man who was jailed for 10 years, for the most part on death row, was innocent - that was the observation made by a Kerala High Court bench on Wednesday while acquitting Girish Kumar, the convict in the Kundara Alice murder case.

Alice, 57, wife of Varghese, a native of Kundara in Kollam, was found murdered at her house on June 11, 2013. Her throat had been slit with a knife after rape. Gold jewellery was reportedly stolen from the house.

The CI who probed the case suspected Girish as he had only recently been released from prison. The fact that he was a history sheeter was also taken into account by the police. Girish was nabbed from a bar in Kundara. After a lengthy trial, the Additional District Sessions Court (4), Kollam pronounced the death sentence on Girish in 2018.

Girish appealed, and after considering the arguments made by his advocates, the High Court upheld his appeal. The court found that the prosecution could not provide evidence to prove Girish's presence at the crim place. The court also found that the prosecution did not examine sufficient witnesses, including neighbours or people who worked in the vicinity. The fact that fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon also came in Girish's favour.

Girish's advocates argued that the investigators failed to recover the 25 sovereigns of gold understood to have been stolen from the house. Alice's neighbour Justin said she had not worn ornaments on the day the crime took place. The police could only recover 25 gm of gold from the jewellery.

The court also dismissed the prosecution's argument about Alice's mobile SIM that was allegedly recovered from a pair of jeans. Technical experts found that the phone was still in Alice's possession at the time mentioned by the prosecution.