A court in Maharashtra’s Thane district has sentenced four persons to life imprisonment in a case of murder of a builder in 2015.
District Judge and Additional Sessions Judge P R Ashturkar at Kalyan court, in the order passed on January 17, convicted the four persons for various offences, including Indian Penal Code sections 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence).
A copy of the order was made available on Saturday.
The builder, Ganesh Mania Chavan (36), from Davdi village in Dombivli town here, had lent Rs 2 lakh to one of the accused – Santosh Chavan – and he was avoiding repayment of it.
On September 26, 2015, while the builder was talking to his friends near a hospital in Davdi village, Santosh Chavan and other persons attacked him with weapons, resulting in his death, as per the prosecution.
A total of seven persons were accused in the case.
The court convicted four of them — Santosh Bhimsingh Chavan (34), Kumar Bhimsingh Chavan (42) (both brothers), Ramesh alias Dattu Gopal Pawar (40) and Swapnil Uttam Padval (32) — and also imposed a fine of Rs 14,000 each on them.
An auto-rickshaw driver, who was also accused in the case, was acquitted as the court gave him the benefit of doubt.
Out of the two other accused, one has been absconding since the incident while the other one, who was released on temporary bail, has been untraceable.
Additional Public Prosecutor Kadambini Khandagale said 21 prosecution witnesses were examined to establish the charges against the accused.
