In Brief
A five-year-old schoolchild was kidnapped in 2007 and allegedly murdered by the appellant and a co-accused. Both accused confessed to killing the child and burying the corpse in a river. The High Court acquitted the co-accused but convicted the appellant. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, finding that the recovery of the victim's school belongings from the appellant's house, combined with credible last-seen evidence and the appellant's failure to explain these recoveries, constituted sufficient circumstantial evidence of guilt. The Court held that the absence of the dead body is not fatal when other clinching circumstances establish the homicidal death.
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