Malwani Creek Murder Case: Court Acquits Three After 8 Years, Says Death Of Woman Not Proven As Homicidal

After spending eight years in prison, the sessions court has acquitted three men who were booked for the murder of a woman and dumping her body in a creek in Malwani. The trio was accused of opposing her marriage to a man from their family in January 2016.

According to the prosecution, on January 9, 2016, police found the naked body of a woman stuffed in a gunny bag. Her hands and legs were tied, and the body had been dumped near a creek.

Further inquiry revealed a missing person complaint for Ruby Qureshi. Upon investigation, police discovered that Ruby’s husband Azad and his brother Raees had left the city for their native place in Uttar Pradesh. The body was later confirmed to be Ruby’s, and a murder case was registered.

The police alleged that Azad’s brother Raees and other family members were against his marriage to Ruby. They also cited frequent quarrels between Ruby and Raees. Based on this, the police concluded that Raees, along with Issaq Qureshi and Gulam Rasool, murdered Ruby. The three were arrested in May 2016.

Police recovered a tooth allegedly belonging to Ruby from a room linked to Raees, along with some personal items recovered at Raees’ instance. However, the defence argued that the DNA from the tooth and the body did not conclusively match.

The court noted that none of the recovered items were conclusively proven to belong to Ruby. Moreover, the body was so decomposed that forensic experts could not extract viable DNA samples.

Due to the decomposed nature of the body, the cause and manner of death remained inconclusive. As a result, the prosecution failed to establish that Ruby's death was homicidal a key element required to prove the offence of murder.

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Furthermore, Azad testified that there were no differences between Ruby and Raees. In fact, he claimed that Raees had supported the couple when they eloped and married in Mumbai.

Given these circumstances, the court ruled that there was no chain of evidence to establish that Ruby was murdered, and all three accused were acquitted.