The gruesome serial killings involved abduction, sexual abuse and brutal murders of children and young women. Death sentences had been earlier meted out, then changed to life sentences, then reestablished. In an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ justice system, everything pivots on ‘proven’. And, here, the whole phalanx of prosecution failed, or succeeded to fail. This, alas, this is not an exception. Routinely, courts have let accused go free either out of ‘external pressure’ or bungling, or both. But it was the heft of horror that the Nithari case bore that leaves us shocked. How evidence is treated is paramount – from securing a crime scene, collecting and cataloguing evidence, ensuring its integrity through a chain of custody of evidence, and how it is stored. Indian investigative agencies need to focus on the treatment of evidence. Strict procedures put in place. The local police, as the first-on-scene, must be trained and enabled to handle evidence. State and national agencies come in after the evidence has been collected and the crime scene released. But the same rules apply.
There is another aspect – a pattern in which trial courts convict, even award the death sentence, and then the higher court overturns the judgment. It points to a lower bar the trial court appears to set for the prosecution. If that is, indeed, the case, the judiciary needs to address it. A nation doesn’t deserve to watch horrific crimes go unpunished for want of the proverbial nail.
