A special court in Mumbai on Tuesday convicted two former police officials in connection with the 2009 custodial death case and sentenced them to seven years in jail, but absolved them of murder charge, reported the PTI.
The deceased was a house break-in suspect.
According to the PTI, Special judge A V Gujarathi, presiding over Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases, convicted then sub-inspector at Mumbai`s Ghatkopar police station, Sanjay Khedekar, and then head constable Raghunath Kolekar under charges of causing hurt and wrongful confinement.
The judge, however, acquitted the duo of more grievous murder charge in the 16-year-old case.
The court sentenced Khedekar and Kolekar to seven years in jail, but suspended the prison term till November 7 to allow the duo, currently out on bail, to file an appeal before the Bombay High Court.
The case against the third accused police official, Sayaji Thombre, was abated as he died during the trial.
Former policemen Khedekar and Kolekar were convicted under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 330 (causing hurt to extort confession, and 120(b) (criminal conspiracy).
“The accused are acquitted under section 302 (murder) read with 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code,” the court said, as per the PTI.
A detailed copy of the judgment was not available yet
The victim, Altaf Shaikh, an alleged drug addict and a history-sheeter, died in the Ghatkopar police station on September 11, 2009. The 22-year-old died within hours of being picked up by police as a suspect in a case of house break-in.
The case was transferred to the CBI after Shaikh`s mother approached the High Court.
Meanwhile, in an another conviction, a Thane court sentenced a man to life imprisonment for brutally assaulting his wife and son with a sickle in 2019, observing the woman sustained 28 injuries that were not possible from falling on the kitchen rack.
The intention of the accused, Pramod Kanha Patil (43), could be ascertained from the “actual injury, nature of weapon used and severity of the blows,” Additional
Sessions Judge GG Bhansali said in the order passed on October 4.
A copy of the order was made available on Monday.
Additional Public Prosecutor RW Pande told the court that the assault, which occurred on October 26, 2019, left the accused`s wife, Vaijayanti Patil, unconscious for nearly 40 days. She sustained 28 life-threatening injuries, including multiple skull fractures and brain injuries.
The accused, who was jobless and a liquor addict, used to regularly assault his wife. On the night of the incident, the accused followed his wife into the kitchen of their house in Maharashtra`s Thane city and attacked her with a sickle typically used to cut fish, as per the prosecution, the news agency reported.
(with PTI inputs)
