Cops say Siya killed Ketan, proving it will be easier said than done

The Pune Lohagad Fort murder case may finally come down to a few feet of rock. The rock from which 26-year-old Ketan Agarwal fell to his death on June 18.

In the three weeks since, what was initially treated as a trekking accident has become a closely watched murder investigation. A young businessman is dead before his wedding, his fiancee Siya Goyal, 20, and her boyfriend Chetan Chaudhary, 22, have been arrested. The police theory is that the two conspired to push Ketan off the Lohagad Fort.

Through official statements and unofficial briefings, the Pune Rural Police has gone some way towards convincing the public of their core theory: that Siya, unhappy with her arranged marriage to Ketan and in love with Chetan, conspired with him to kill her fiance by pushing him off a cliff. According to the police, the planning involved cafe meetings, rehearsals and even a failed attempt.

That is the case as it exists in the headlines. None of this is proved yet. Siya Goyal and Chetan Chaudhary remain accused persons.

For a court to find them guilty, that police story will have to move from allegation to proof. The alleged affair may establish motive; the cafe meetings and rehearsals may establish planning. Phone records, clothes, CCTV footage, location data and conduct after the fall may strengthen the chain. But for this chain to hold up in court, it must lead to one conclusion, and one alone: that Ketan did not slip, jump or lose his balance, but was deliberately pushed.

That is harder to prove than it is to allege -- something the Pune Police appears to recognise. In a now-withdrawn plea for lie-detector tests, the police reportedly told a court that it had neither a direct eyewitness nor conclusive evidence establishing who allegedly pushed Ketan to his death. What they claimed to have were "confessions" by Siya and Chetan.

Senior advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir dismisses confessions made in police custody as "bulls**t". Mir, a prominent criminal defence lawyer who represented the Talwar couple in the appeal that led to their acquittal in the 2008 Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case, is equally blunt about public perception.

Public perception "never works in a court of law and never should", he says. The job of a court is not to mirror the anger outside it, but to ask a cold question: what has actually been proved?

What makes the Lohagad case difficult is the kind of evidence on which it appears to rest right now: a murder prosecution built largely, perhaps entirely, on circumstantial evidence.

THE PANCHSHEEL RULES

Indian law does not require an eyewitness, or a video recording, to prove murder. Courts can and often do convict on circumstantial evidence: a chain of facts that points only to one conclusion.

But the chain must be complete. Each circumstance must be proved, and together they must exclude every reasonable alternative explanation. If one link breaks, the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused, advocate Mir tells IndiaToday.in.

The principles governing circumstantial evidence go back almost as far as the Republic of India itself. In Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh, a 1952 judgment, the Supreme Court warned courts against mistaking suspicion for proof.

The Supreme Court later crystallised the test in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984) as the five "panchsheel" principles: each circumstance must be fully proved, point only towards guilt and be conclusive in nature; together, the circumstances must exclude every reasonable alternative theory and form a chain that leaves no reasonable possibility of innocence.

Mir calls it an "unbreakable chain". The prosecution does not win by showing that many things look suspicious. It must prove each major circumstance and link it tightly to the next.

That is where such cases often turn: not on one dramatic courtroom revelation, but on whether one link can be made to snap.

THE AARUSHI EXAMPLE

Few cases illustrate this better than the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder. Aarushi Talwar, 13, and Hemraj Banjade, the Talwars' domestic help, were found murdered in Noida in 2008. Aarushi's parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, were convicted by a CBI court in 2013 and acquitted by the Allahabad High Court four years later. Mir represented them in the appeal.

By then, the twin deaths were no longer just a criminal case. Like Ketan Agarwal's death, the case had become a national obsession: a teenage girl dead in her bedroom, Hemraj's body found on the terrace, a family under endless scrutiny, and a public that had begun treating suspicion as fact. The trial court convicted the Talwars; the High Court took that conviction apart on the panchsheel principles.

Among the breaks in the prosecution's chain of evidence was its failure to prove conclusively that no outsider could have entered the Talwars' home on the night of the murders. Mir also raised doubts about whether the injuries could have been caused by a dental scalpel of the kind available to Rajesh Talwar, a dentist.

Most importantly, the defence raised what Mir calls a "damning alternative hypothesis": that a third person, Krishna Thadarai, Rajesh Talwar's compounder and an earlier suspect, could have committed the murders. Mir did not have to prove that Krishna had in fact committed the murders. He only had to make the hypothesis plausible enough to create reasonable doubt.

SO WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PUNE CASE?

That is the chain the Pune Rural Police will have to build in court.

Investigators will have to convert every claim made in briefings into evidence that survives legal scrutiny. Siya's alleged unhappiness with the marriage will have to establish motive. Her alleged relationship with Chetan, the cafe meetings and the rehearsals will have to establish conspiracy. Phone and chat records, CCTV footage and location data will have to show not just suspicious behaviour, but the existence of a murder plot.

Siya and Chetan's conduct after Ketan’s fall will matter too. Did they call for help? Did they raise an alarm? Did they stay at the spot or leave? Did they mislead Ketan’s family or hide information from them? Did they conceal clothes, delete chats, or switch off phones?

But all this can only strengthen the chain. A motive is not a push. A murder plan is not a push. A lie told afterwards is not a push.

The hardest part of the chain will be the fall itself.

Mir believes the exact point from which Ketan fell will be of "very huge significance". The slope, the edge, the approach path, Ketan's footwear, the line of fall, his injuries and the physical possibility of an ordinary slip will all matter.

In this case, the legal question is simple: did Ketan fall, or was he pushed? And if he was pushed, was the act intentional, or could it have happened accidentally during an argument that turned physical?

These questions are hypothetical, and that is the point. To prove its case, the Pune Police will have to rule out every reasonable explanation except one: that Ketan was intentionally pushed.

That is why the case will have to return to Lohagad and to those few feet of rock. The headlines may have already decided what happened there. A trial court will ask for proof.

- Ends