A manual of medical jurisprudence for India : including the outline of a history of crime against the person in India / by Norman Chevers.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence for India : including the outline of a history of crime against the person in India / by Norman Chevers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    89/913 (page 51)
    I shall quote another case from the paper on Native Society in India, in Allen's Asiatic Journal, because in it we find the accused con- fessing to the murder of a living person, and obtain an important hint for our guidance in question of Identity in India. Parents deny the identity of their daughter, of whom they have lost sight only for three years. In 1809, Nubia, the daughter of a respectable Hindu named Dhur, living in a village in the Doab, become attached to one Kulian. Her family being adverse, she eloped with the young man, taking her valuables to a consider- able amount. The father went to Cawnpore, where he found Kulian, but without the girl, and had him apprehended as his daughter's murderer. Kulian readily acknowledged that he had taken Nubia from the village ; and, while under examination, he informed a friend that he had buried the greater portion of her clothes and ornaments which she had carried away in the house which he then inhabited, pointing out the precise place, and requesting that they might be given up to her father. He at first preserved a mysterious silence respecting the fate of the owner, but, the property being found, he was taken to the thannah. Here he admitted that he had killed the girl, stating that he had thrown her body into a nullah, and offering to show the police officers the spot. Upon their arrival, they searched in vain for the usual indications ; no remains of a body could be found, nor any signs of the perpetration of a murder. He then said that, being apprehensive of ill-usage at the thannah, he had pleaded guilty. He also asserted that he had left his companion alive and well in the neighbourhood of the camp at Cawnpore, but knew not what had become of her afterwards. At the trial, the police positively declared that neither threats nor violence had been employed to induce him to con- fess. He readily admitted that he had eloped with the girl, aud also acknow- ledged that he had confessed the murder imputed to him, but declared that he had been beaten and menaced by the police, and had, therefore, confessed through fear. He declared his perfect ignorance of Nubia's fate, saying that, when they neared the cantonments, they being afraid of beiug seen together, it was determined that he should go into the city and procure a house, and she entrusted her bundles to him. Leaving her beside a well, until his return, they parted early in the morning ; on his return, at mid-day, she had dis- appeared. He was sentenced to thirty lashes and to imprisonment for fourteen years, the proof beiug considered insufficient to warrant capital punishment. About three years subsequently, Medaree, Kulian's brother, brought forward one whom he alleged to be Nubia. She made oath that she was. The father and mother, however, denied her identity. Consequently, worthy Brahmin who took him home and nursed him. He did not, however, come forward till the sentence had been passed. See an extraordinary case, apparently of this kind, in Nizamut Adawlut Reports. N. W. P. Sept. 18th, 1854, p. 381; and another in the Police Report, L. P., for 1844, n. 37.