Noida: Man held for forging papers to bail out son arrested for murder

The girl’s mother alleged before the Juvenile Justice Board that the suspect’s original date of birth was July 10, 1997, and he was a Class 12 graduate from an inter-college in Kanpur

Noida: A 48-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly securing bail of his son in a rape and murder case by submitting fake documents in court, police said on Monday, adding that he prepared them taking help of a Kanpur-based principal to declare his son a juvenile at the time of the incident.

The case dates back to March 15, 2016, when a 17-year-old girl was raped and murdered at her rented house that falls under Ecotech 3 police station in Greater Noida village allegedly by her cousin. (Representational image)

“Following a year of search, police on Monday arrested the man, from his native town Kanpur and produced him before the court,” said Vindyachal Tiwari, station house officer, Phase 2, adding that efforts were underway to nab the principal.

The case dates back to March 15, 2016, when a 17-year-old girl was raped and murdered at her rented house that falls under Ecotech 3 police station in Greater Noida village allegedly by her cousin, police said.

Police said the sexual assault and murder occurred when the victim was alone at her rented home in the village. The suspect visited her house and raped her. As she screamed, he strangulated her with a piece of cloth and dumped the body in the adjacent vacant plot.

The suspect, a resident of Mandawali area, Delhi, was arrested by the Ecotech-3 police on the same day after the girl’s mother returned and found her missing and the suspect was about to flee. He was lodged in the district’s Luksar jail since then, said police.

On October 1, 2023, the suspect’s trial was transferred to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) after his lawyer told the district and sessions court in Surajpur that the suspect was a juvenile at the time of the incident.

During a trial to determine the suspect’s age, he told the Justice Juvenile Board that he was born on February 10, 2000 and had studied till Class 8 at a private school. His father also produced his son’s marksheet before the board to attest this. The board summoned the school principal who confirmed that birth date.

However, the girl’s mother later alleged before the board that the suspect’s original date of birth was July 10, 1997, and he was a Class 12 graduate from an inter-college in Kanpur.

“She also produced a copy of the suspect’s academic documents, in which his year of birth was 1997. She alleged that the suspect’s father had produced a forged document to get him declared a juvenile,” said Arun Kumar Gupta, a member magistrate of the JJB.

However, when JJB asked the principal to produce year-wise attendance records and marksheets of the suspect, he said the records had been “destroyed by termites”.

The JJB observed that the suspect’s father, in connivance with the principal, produced fake documents to get the suspect declared juvenile, a case under sections 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and Section 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Phase 2 police station in October 9, 2023.