Mukeem reaches out from grave to nab killers

Body didn't sink despite attempts to drown it in nullah with boulders; without a dead body, a murder is difficult to nail

Mukeem reaches out from grave to nab killers

Body didn't sink despite attempts to drown it in nullah with boulders; without a dead body, a murder is difficult to nailu00a0

On the morning of February 13, Amir Shaikh (19) and Sarfraz Shaikh (17), allegedly battered their college friend Mukeem Khan (17) to death, as they didn't want to take any chances.

Then, they wrapped his bleeding and disfigured body in a gunny bag, tied up the mouth of the bag and rolled it into a nullah.

The boys thought the body would drift into the Mithi river and the evidence would disappear. The next day, Amir went back to the spot and saw to his horror that the sack had risen to the surface of the water. He put more boulders on the sack, which sank again.

Had the boys been successful in making the body disappear, so to speak, it would have been extremely difficult to nail them. Said IPS officer-turned-lawyer Y P Singh, "If the body of the victim is not recovered, it would have been impossible for the police to prove the murder. In that case, it would have been a missing complaint.

Even though the accused have given a confessional statement to the police, it cannot stand up in court. Moreover, what happens in such cases, is that the accused often retract their statements. The most important thing in a case of murder is to find the body.u00a0 Without it, there is no proof of murder."

Mukeem's body did not flow into the Mithi as the boys hoped because the ditch was too muddy and the flow too sluggish for the body to be swept away. And the boulders, instead of helping the body sink, ensured it stayed grounded.

Said investigating officer PI Baburao Mukhedkar of Khar police station, "The nullah connects to the Mithi river and if the body had gone inside the water, it would have beenu00a0 time consuming and very difficult to locate it."
Added a fire officer, "It takes a long time to recover a body that has drowned and if it's over a few days old, the body is too decomposed and cannot be identified easily."

u00a0Mukhedkar said, "It would have been impossible to convict these boys for the murder of their friend, if the body had not been found. The most important evidence of the murder case is the body itself. It would have been a missing complaint, not murder."

Hypothetically, if the body had not been found, the case would have still been registered under section 302 (murder), but it would have been difficult to convict the accused for murder in a court of law. And in many cases, the accused is acquitted for lack of evidence. Said Y P Singh, "The police have to build the case on circumstantial evidence and theu00a0 statement of the accused, which is not good enough for conviction."u00a0

In the Khwaja Yunus case
Accused in the Ghatkopar bomb blast, he went missing, said the police.
His parents alleged he was killed in police custody and demanded a fresh probe. Four cops were prosecuted,
but as Yunus's body was never found, conviction is still pending.u00a0

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