In a significant reversal, the Allahabad High Court on Friday acquitted Hafeez Khan, who had been incarcerated since January 2017 on charges of murdering his wife, Saira Bano. Justices AR Masoodi and Subhash Vidyarthi not only ordered Khan’s immediate release but also mandated the Uttar Pradesh government to compensate him with Rs 1 lakh for the wrongful imprisonment exceeding seven years.
Khan’s ordeal began when Saira Bano’s sister, Shabana, filed a complaint alleging her sister was tortured for dowry and subsequently made to disappear. Acting on an informant’s tip, police exhumed a body that Shabana and another sister, Perveen, identified as Saira Bano’s. This led to Khan’s conviction in March 2019 by the additional sessions judge of Bahraich, who sentenced him to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 60,000.
However, during the appeal, the High Court highlighted significant lapses in the prosecution’s case, notably the failure to establish the identity of the exhumed body conclusively. The bench criticized the lack of evidence linking the body to Saira Bano, pointing out that despite the presence of clothes, a thread, and an amulet on the body, no definitive testimony or forensic evidence was presented to connect these items to Bano.
The court’s ruling emphasized the absence of any concrete proof that Khan had committed the alleged murder. “The only irresistible conclusion that we can draw is that the ASJ has concluded that the appellant killed Saira Bano…without there being any evidence to support this conclusion and, therefore, this conclusion is perverse,” the justices remarked.
