New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS): A Delhi court has acquitted a man who was being tried for strangulating and drowning to death his 21-day-old daughter in 2019.

The cause of death, as per the post-mortem report, was asphyxia caused by manual strangulation.

Additional Sessions Judge, Gautam Manan, ruled that the accused's wife retracted her allegations and turned hostile during the trial, leading to the acquittal.

The court found that there was insufficient evidence to establish the accused's presence in the house at the time of the incident, and no medical or forensic evidence connecting him to the alleged murder.

The prosecution's case relied heavily on the account provided by Kiran, the complainant and mother of the deceased child.

She initially alleged that she witnessed her husband, Mukesh, confessing to strangulating and drowning their infant daughter.

However, during her court testimony, Kiran did not support these allegations, claiming that she found the child on the terrace floor and raised an alarm.

Another witness, Babita, the accused's niece, had also allegedly heard the accused confessing to the crime. However, she too retracted her statement and did not support the prosecution's case.

The court said that all prosecution witnesses had retracted their statements and were declared hostile, failing to provide incriminating evidence against the accused.

Additionally, the accused's father, mother, and brother did not testify to his presence in the house during the incident.

With no other medical, forensic, or corroborating evidence on record, the court concluded that the prosecution had failed to establish the charges against the accused, and acquitted Mukesh of all charges.