Thane court awards life imprisonment to two men for 2017 gang-rape case

A court in Maharashtrarsquos Thane district has sentenced two men to life imprisonment for the gangrape of a 30yearold woman in 2017 The verdict was delivered by Additional Sessions Judge Vasudha L Bhosale on Friday who found the accused guilty under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code IPCAccording to PTI the two convicts identified as Suresh Pandurang Gosavi 40 and Umesh alias Rakesh Zhala 39 were also convicted on charges of kidnapping and robbery Apart from the life sentence the court imposed a fine of 55000 on each of themAs per PTI the judge ruled that all the sentences awarded to the accused would run concurrently Additionally the court directed the convicts to pay 40000 each as compensation to the victim The case has also been referred to the District Legal Services Authority DLSA for further compensation as per legal provisionsPTI reports that Additional Public Prosecutors Varsha Chandane and Rajendra P Patil presented evidence in court detailing the crime On the evening of December 19 2017 the victim who was employed as a store manager was on her way home from work when she boarded Gosavirsquos cab The other accused Zhala was already seated in the frontAccording to the prosecution after driving some distance the accused halted the vehicle under the pretext of fixing a flat tyre They then robbed the victim of her jewellery and mobile phone before sexually assaulting her inside the vehicleThe crime did not end there The perpetrators then took the woman to a lodge but she managed to raise an alarm forcing the accused to abandon her and flee the sceneThane court acquits man accused of kidnapping murdering 13yearold boyA court in MaharashtrasThane districthas acquitted a man accused of kidnapping and murdering a 13yearold boy in 2022 citing insufficient evidence against him reported news agency PTIPrincipal District and Sessions Court judge S B Agrawal acquitted Dashrath Prakash Kakade 30 a resident of Mumbra of charges including abduction murder and destruction of evidence reported PTIA copy of the order dated February 28 was made available on SundayThe prosecution had alleged that Kakade a contractor had kidnapped the victim Suresh alias Rupesh Vijay Gole on the pretext of buying clothes on April 17 2022 and later strangled him at a public toilet near the railway tracks in Diva Thane reported PTIInitially an FIR was registered under section 363 kidnapping of theIndian Penal Code The police later added the charges of sections 302 murder 364 kidnapping with intent to murder and 201 destruction of evidenceDuring the trial the victims mother testified that Kakade took the boy away around 3 pm on the day of the incident However the court raised concerns about the credibility of her statement as it was recorded 11 days after the incident reported PTIA crucial piece of evidence CCTV footage allegedly showing Kakade with the victim was also ruled inadmissible due to noncompliance with the Indian Evidence ActAnother key argument made by the prosecution was that Kakade led the police to the location of the boys body However the court questioned the validity of this claim highlighting that the body was discovered in apublic toilet a location accessible to many reported PTIWhile the postmortem report confirmed that the victim died due to throttling it did not provide any direct link to the accused the court saidBlood and forensic analyses also failed to establish any conclusive evidence against him it statedThe court also noted that the initial FIR mentioned Kakade dropping the victim off at a local fair leaving room for other possibilitiesGiven these gaps in the evidencethe courtheld that the prosecution had failed to establish an unbroken chain of circumstances proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubtWith inputs from PTI