Mumbai, Jan 17 (PTI) A sessions court here on Wednesday sentenced five men to life imprisonment for kidnapping and murdering a Mumbai-based builder over a property deal in April 2012.
They were convicted under the Indian Penal Code sections for murder and kidnapping by additional sessions judge MH Pathan.
The builder, Nitin Dhakan, was kidnapped from suburban Borivali on April 26, 2012, by real estate broker Gopal Pandey, Harun Shaikh, Birbal Singh, Brijesh Mishra, Abhijeet Bhosale and Sachin Chorge, as per the prosecution.
The main accused Pandey died pending the trial.
A day after Dhakan went missing on April 26, 2012, his wife lodged a complaint with the local police.
Meanwhile, the victim’s brother-in-law received information that Dhakan’s car had met with an accident on a road, but when he visited the spot, Dhakan was not found. Subsequently, Dhakan’s wife lodged a kidnapping case, the prosecution said.
In June 2012, six men were arrested by the Mumbai Police’s crime branch and their interrogation revealed that Dhakan was beaten to death in a forest in neighbouring Palghar district, and his body was set on fire using petrol.
Police recovered only half of the burnt skull from the spot, as per the prosecution.
Special Public Prosecutor Vaibhav Bagade said a total of 31 witnesses were examined during the trial.
The prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence such as DNA retrieved from the skull, which matched with the victim’s mother.
“The accused persons used the mobile phone SIM card of the builder to mislead his relatives by trying to make them believe that he had met with an accident. They tried to create an impression the victim was alive, while the fact is that he was already murdered,” Bagade said. PTI AVI NSK
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