Murder accused gets bail after DNA report finds body male, not missing woman’s

Dehradun: Uttarakhand high court (HC) has granted bail to Ramesh Ram, an accused named in a case involving the purported murder of a woman missing since Sept 2025, after the DNA report of an unidentified corpse -- initially claimed to be the victim’s -- was “found to be male”.The court of Justice Ashish Naithani said, as per the forensic science laboratory’s (FSL) findings referred to in the case diary, the DNA report showed that the body which had been recovered was not a female. “Hence, scientific evidence does not support identification of the body as that of the missing person, Sunita Devi.”The applicant’s counsel contended that Ramesh was falsely implicated, that there was no independent witness and no motive was attributed to him. The defence also highlighted delays, pointing that the missing person report was lodged after four days and the FIR was registered on Sept 30, 2025, about 18 days after her alleged kidnapping.The defence further asserted that the applicant did not have a vehicle capable of transporting the victim or a corpse over a long distance and pointed to the recovery of the remains from Tanakpur, Champawat district, more than 200 km away.The applicant also relied on the absence of a postmortem report on record indicating cause or approximate time of death.An FIR was registered against Ramesh and another accused at a police station in Pithoragarh’s Berinag under sections 87 (kidnapping or inducing woman to compel her into marriage), 140 (1) (kidnapping with intent to murder), 3 (5) (when multiple individuals commit criminal act with shared intention...) and 238 (intentionally destroying, hiding, or altering evidence) of the BNS. Ramesh, a resident of Kismilla village in Bageshwar, had been in judicial custody since Dec 11.