|
|
 |
|
|
Boy ‘identifies’ his past-life killer
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA. Will the testimony of someone recalling a crime experienced in a past life be permissible in a court of law? That’s the question that has caused a sensation in India.
It concerns a murder that took place in Chhonk, a district of Hathras town in western Uttar Pradesh six years ago, on 28 February 2000. The victim, Mahipal, has now made a deposition accusing his former friend, Ved Prakash, of killing him, and he even pointed a finger at him in court.
But – you may protest – how can he do that when he’s dead?
The answer, of course, is that he has apparently returned in another body. He is now a five-year-old named Durgesh but, he claims, he carries with him the memories of that previous life which came to an end when his friend, who was having an affair with his wife, strangled him.
It so happens that Ved Prakash was arrested on suspicion of the murder but was released for lack of evidence. He soon moved away from Hathras.
The case came to light when Durgesh’s grandmother took him to the court and spoke to her lawyer. She had a particular interest in the case since the murdered man, Mahipal, was one of her sons who, it seems, has now been reborn as the child of another son – making him his own nephew.
This may sound complicated but there are numerous cases on record of reincarnation seemingly occurring within families.
All of which posed a unique problem for a trial court in Chhonk, which had to decide whether such testimony could be allowed. The Additional District and Sessions Judge, S.P. Avind, was at first dismissive of the claim but later allowed District Government Counsel Sahib Singh Chauhan to record Durgesh’s statement under Section 311 of the Criminal Procedure Code which allows the prosecution to provide new evidence in support of its accusations.
Chauhan referred to Durgesh’s statement as “clinching evidence” against Ved Prakash. But defence counsel Rajiv Tiwari argued that “rebirth has no legal sanctity under any law” and accused the opposition of “tutoring” the boy.
However, Durgesh – who stood in the witness box and gave a graphic account of his own murder in a rose farm, indicating the parts of his body injured in the attack – was able to correctly identify Ved Prakash. The judge was reported to have been taken aback by this, since the accused had not been seen by anyone in Chhonk since the murder, and there was no chance of the boy ever having seen him until they met again in court.
At a hearing on 12 November 2005, judgment was deferred and the prosecution was asked to produce any legal provisions relating to reincarnation, if any. The case was adjourned until 30 November, but since then there have been no follow-ups in the Indian media nor reports of an outcome, so either legal wrangling continues or the case has been referred to a higher court or rejected.
Whatever the legal outcome, it is a case that reincarnation investigators will certainly follow up and www.ParanormalReview.com will be following their research with interest.
|
Posted on Monday, September 04, 2006
Category: Reincarnation
|
| Return |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|