Sanjib Banerjee, J. - (1.) It is more likely than not that these appellants, or some of them, committed the murder of the victim; but conviction requires firmer ground than mere suspicion and the tardy investigation in this case has failed to connect the appellants with the commission of the offence beyond reasonable doubt.
(2.) The appellants are the husband, two brothers of the husband and the parents-in-law of the victim. The victim was found throttled to death in the morning of December 7, 2000. The postmortem report opined that the death was caused by the head and neck injuries; the neck injuries likely to have been caused by strangulation. The injuries were found to be antemortem and homicidal in nature.
(3.) A written complaint was lodged on December 7, 2000 by the father of the victim. He claimed that his daughter was given in marriage to the first appellant about seven years prior to the complaint. He alleged in his complaint that his daughter was subjected to physical and mental torture by her in-laws. The complaint also spoke of the victim having given birth to a female child in October, 1999, and the torture of the victim continuing unabated. The father apparently brought the victim to her paternal house for the occasion of Kali Puja in 2000 and she was taken back to her matrimonial home by her father-in-law on November 21, 2000. The complainant claimed that he came to learn of his daughter's death from Naru Mahato of the same village as the matrimonial home of the victim. The complaint recorded that the appellants jointly killed my daughter by throttling on the last night of 6.12.2000.;