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A Delhi court has discharged an Indian man wrongfully accused in connection with a murder in Australia's Redfern in 2003 after forensic tests confirmed it was a case of mistaken identity.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pranav Joshi on June 13 exonerated Mohammed Basheeruddin, who had been arrested last month, after a report from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) revealed that his fingerprints did not match those found at the crime scene in Australia. "The fingerprints of the arrested individual do not match those of the original fugitive criminal," the judge noted in court. "In view of this, Mohammed Basheeruddin is discharged from the present proceedings." The murder occurred on the night of June 29, 2003. The body of Shoukat Mohammed was found stuffed inside a sleeping bag placed in a wheelie bin on James Street, Redfern. The victim had been drugged, assaulted, and ultimately strangled to death, triggering a long-running homicide investigation in Australia. According to New South Wales authorities, the case remains open. The NSW Government has announced a reward of AUD 100,000 for any information leading to the arrest of the fugitive criminal responsible for the killing. During the court proceedings in Delhi, Basheeruddin's lawyer, Farhat Jahan Rehmani, argued that her client had been falsely implicated due to a name mismatch. The actual name mentioned in foreign records was "Bashiruddin Mohd," she said -- not her client's full name, Mohammed Basheeruddin. She also pointed out that he obtained his Indian passport only in 2016, and since then, he had never traveled abroad except to Saudi Arabia. (ANI)
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