Bilaspur Murder Verdict Exposes Gaps in Police Investigation

A court verdict in the Sanju Tripathi murder case in Bilaspur has laid bare serious flaws in the police investigation. All 22 arrested accused were acquitted after the court found that the prosecution had failed to prove its case, despite a large array of charges, witnesses and documents.

The case began with the daylight shooting of Sanju Tripathi on December 14, 2022, at the Sakri bypass. The incident created panic across the city. Police later presented a theory involving a property dispute, a contract killing and shooters brought in from Uttar Pradesh, and named 24 people as accused.

The judgment, spanning about 350 pages, was delivered on Friday, October 30, by Additional Tenth Sessions Judge Aditya Joshi. It examined seven major weaknesses in the investigation, starting with the medical record. Police had listed the time of death as 4:15 pm, but the record also referred to ECG and X-ray examinations at Apollo Hospital around 15 hours later. Police could not clearly explain the intervening period.

The ballistic and medical evidence also failed to align. The prosecution's claim of 13 bullets fired at the car was not supported by bullet marks on the vehicle or by bullets found inside it. The post-mortem record mentioned three bullets removed from the body, while the chargesheet, based on the doctor's report, mentioned six.

Further, several private witnesses, including a paan shop operator, turned hostile. The motive of a property dispute was not established as the basis of a conspiracy, and electronic evidence suffered from procedural gaps, including the absence of nodal officers' testimony and the required certificate under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act.

The outcome has prompted calls for accountability. SP Rajnesh Singh has said that the judgment will be studied and an appeal filed in the High Court, and that action will be taken against officers or staff found guilty of negligence or errors in the probe.

Four years after the killing, the question of who planned and executed the murder remains open. The court has not found the accused guilty, but the truth behind the crime is still awaited.