Chandigarh, Aug. 27 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has acquitted four people on death row for the rape and murder of two minor girls in Haryana's Sonipat district in August 2021. The accused allegedly raped and forced fed poison to the two girls aged 13 and 15 years when they were sleeping with their mother in a room in the Kundli area on August 5, 2021. The four, all migrant labourers, lived in a room adjacent to the victim's family's accommodation, the prosecution said. They allegedly raped the two girls and forced fed them poison. The victim's mother was allegedly gagged and threatened, according to the prosecution. The girls were taken to a Delhi hospital where the younger one was declared dead on arrival and the second died during treatment. Initially, the mother claimed it to be a case of snake bite. However, on August 9, she lodged a police complaint, naming the four accused - Arun, Phool Chand, Dukhan and Ram Suhag, all migrant labourers. The accused were arrested and booked for rape and murder. A trial court in Sonepat convicted the four and awarded death penalty to them on November 24, 2023. The accused had moved the high court against their conviction and sentence the same year. The high court, however, reversed the trial court order on Wednesday. Acquitting the accused in the case, a bench of justices Anoop Chitkara and RC Dimri held that the prosecution has failed to establish the convicts as the perpetrator of the crime. "An analysis of the entire evidence not only creates doubt about the involvement of any of the accused but also indicates the absence of scientific evidence against them," the bench said. "Given the above, although the prosecution is able to establish the commission of the offence of rape against both the victims, but it has failed to connect any of the accused as the perpetrator of rape," the judges said in their order. The court observed that after careful analysis of the entire evidence and the record, the picture that emerges is "hazy as to how these four persons were implicated, much worse given the death sentence"....