Cigarette lighter helps French police identify murdered Indian man
Lille: French police said Monday they had identified the body of an Indian national found in a sack by the side of a road in northern France, thanks to a cigarette lighter found in the dead man's pocket.
Police said the clue had proved distinctive enough to help lead to the detention in Belgium of another Indian national suspected of murder.
Last October a machine operator was clearing out a pit at Bourbourg when he found a sack containing a decomposed body, without any documents or cellphone to help determine the sex, nationality or circumstances of the death.
The DNA and fingerprints also failed to reveal the identity, according to a statement from investigators in Lille who led the inquiry.
But it was a cigarette lighter stamped "Kroeg Cafe" that was found in the pocket of the victim's trousers that finally led to a breakthrough, when Belgian federal police saw a picture of the evidence.
Police had been searching for 42-year-old Darshan Singh, an Indian national resident in Belgium, since last June.
The cafe on the lighter, though a common name in Belgium and the Netherlands meaning "the pub," was located near the victim's home in Ravels close to the Dutch border.
Investigators confirmed the victim's DNA from a toothbrush.
The discovery of the missing man's remains relaunched an inquiry by Belgian authorities, who in late March questioned another man of Indian nationality suspected of having killed Singh.
A source close to the case declined to give further details on the motive for the suspected murder. French authorities will hand over the file to Belgium.
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Broken relationships don't automatically amount to abetment of suicide: SC
New Delhi (PTI): Broken relationships, while emotionally distressing, do not automatically amount to abetment of suicide in the absence of intention leading to the criminal offence, the Supreme Court on Friday said.
The observations came from a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Ujjal Bhuyan in a judgement, which overturned the conviction of one Kamaruddin Dastagir Sanadi by the Karnataka High Court for the offences of cheating and abetment of suicide under the IPC.
"This is a case of a broken relationship, not criminal conduct," the judgment said.
Sanadi was initially charged under Sections 417 (cheating), 306 (abetment of suicide), and 376 (rape) of the IPC.
While the trial court acquitted him of all the charges, the Karnataka High Court, on the state's appeal, convicted him of cheating and abetment of suicide, sentencing him to five years imprisonment and imposing Rs 25,000 in fine.
According to the FIR registered at the mother's instance, her 21-year-old daughter was in love with the accused for the past eight years and died by suicide in August, 2007, after he refused to keep his promise to marry.
Writing a 17-page judgement, Justice Mithal analysed the two dying declarations of the woman and noted that neither was there any allegation of a physical relationship between the couple nor there was any intentional act leading to the suicide.
The judgement therefore underlined broken relationships were emotionally distressing, but did not automatically amount to criminal offences.
"Even in cases where the victim dies by suicide, which may be as a result of cruelty meted out to her, the courts have always held that discord and differences in domestic life are quite common in society and that the commission of such an offence largely depends upon the mental state of the victim," said the apex court.
The court further said, "Surely, until and unless some guilty intention on the part of the accused is established, it is ordinarily not possible to convict him for an offence under Section 306 IPC.”
The judgement said there was no evidence to suggest that the man instigated or provoked the woman to die by suicide and underscored a mere refusal to marry, even after a long relationship, did not constitute abetment.
