7-yr-old’s version 2 decades ago prompts Cal HC to reverse acquittal
Times of India | 18 July 2026
Kolkata: Refusing to “brush aside” the testimony of a man who, as a 7-year-old, witnessed his father, uncles and aunts poison and kill his mother in 2006, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday reversed the acquittal of the Diamond Harbour man and his four relatives after nine years, and sentenced them to 24 years in prison. The husband was additionally sentenced to one more year for charges under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The division bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Rai Chattopadhyay also directed that the five convicts cannot seek remission before 24 years and will have to surrender within three weeks.
The son, who had turned 13 when the trial was going on, had witnessed the beating, poisoning, and cleaning up of the crime scene on the night of July 6, 2006. In his statement to the trial court, he ahd said he was sleeping with his mother when there was a knock on the door around midnight. His mother opened the door and his father, who was drunk, started beating her. Scared, he hid under the bed, from where he saw his mother fall down. He saw her asking for water but his aunt got poison instead and handed it over to his father. The son saw his mother being fed the poison, then his aunt and uncle changing her saree before taking her to a private hospital. He saw them return mid-way and say that his mother was dead.
The trial judge disbelieved his statements. It was opined that the son may have been tutored as his statement was recorded when he started living with his maternal uncles in Sonarpur. While acquitting, in 2017, it was held that the circumstances narrated by the son didn’t match the autopsy report.
But the HC held that the description matched as the autopsy report stated there were multiple bruises on the face, neck, chest, trunk, wrists and limbs, including scratch abrasions on the left side of her face. It was also found that she had tried to vomit the poison, but her husband and his relatives held her down.
“Witnessing the death of one’s mother at the hands of one’s father, uncles and aunts is indeed an abnormal event in the life of an individual. The same being witnessed by a minor child of seven-years-old only exacerbates the situation. The evidence of PW 3 (the son), therefore, cannot be brushed aside. The evidence describes in detail the events that unfolded on that fateful day. PW 3 (the son) had no motive to falsely implicate his own father and the siblings of his father,” the Calcutta HC held.
The complaint was lodged by the victim’s brother, who had tried to take the woman to Diamond Harbour hospital after being called at 1 am on the day of incident and told that his sister died by suicide. The charges of dowry were also established.