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Jessica's family not surprised over acquittal

Staff Reporter

`Things had been going wrong for quite long'

NEW DELHI: The acquittal of all the nine accused in the sensational Jessica Lal murder case at Tamarind Court restaurant in South Delhi in April 1999 has not come as a big surprise to her family as "things had been going wrong for quite long".

Jessica's sister Sabrina Lal on Tuesday said the forensic report showing that the empties seized by the police from the spot were of bullets shot from different firearms acted as a first blow. The police had in the investigation claimed that only one weapon had been used to gun down the model, which they could not prove.

Then the eyewitnesses began turning hostile one by one, which proved detrimental to the prosecution's case.

"There is always a possibility that they could have been threatened or bought to turn hostile. Also, the accused in the case were well connected," said Sabrina with a sense of resignation.

For over two years Sabrina kept following every development in the case hoping that the guilty would be punished but when the prime accused, Siddharth Vashisth alias Manu Sharma, was released on bail, Jessica's relatives felt dejected. Her mother passed away and her father's health began deteriorating.

On their part, the police could not even reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the crime. Surprisingly, the weapon of offence remained untraceable all this while and those who had destroyed the evidence on the spot were not identified.

About the acquittal, Sabrina said the court depended heavily on eyewitnesses and did not give primacy to the circumstantial evidence. "It is a fact that my sister was shot at the restaurant and those who were present there at that time had seen who did it," she said.

She refused to comment on the alleged police laxity in carrying out proper investigation into the case. "Now it is up to the State to plan further course of action," she added.

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