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  Metros   Mumbai  03 Dec 2019  HC upholds death penalty for 4 in honour killing case

HC upholds death penalty for 4 in honour killing case

THE ASIAN AGE.
Published : Dec 3, 2019, 1:51 am IST
Updated : Dec 3, 2019, 1:51 am IST

They were convicted on various charges, including murder and criminal conspiracy.

Bombay high court
 Bombay high court

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday confirmed the death penalty for four out of five accused in the 2013 Sonai triple murder case. Another accused in the six-year-old case was acquitted by the high court.

According to police, the killings were prompted by an inter-caste love affair between one of the deceased and a girl from the Maratha community, to which the accused are said to belong.

In January 2018, a sessions court in Nevase had awarded the death sentence to six persons — Raghunath Darandale, Ramesh Darandale, Prakash Darandale, Ganesh alias Pravin Darandale, Ashok Navgire and Sandeep Kurhe — in the murder case in Ahmednagar district.

They were convicted on various charges, including murder and criminal conspiracy.

One of the convicts, Raghunath Darandale, died during the pendency of the case.

Subsequently, the accused appealed their convictions before the high court.

On Monday, a division bench of Justices B.P. Dharamadhikari and S.K. Shinde confirmed the death penalty for Ramesh Darandale, Prakash Darandale, Ganesh alias Pravin Darandale and Sandeep Kurhe.

The court, however, acquitted Ashok Navgire (32) due to lack of evidence against him.

The three Dalit men — Sachin Gharu (24), Sandeep Thanvar (25) and Rahul Kandare (20) — were killed in Sonai village in the western Maharashtra district on January 1, 2013, and their mutilated body parts were found in a septic tank and a well.

The girl’s family had allegedly summoned Gharu, who was in a relationship with the girl, and his colleagues on January 1, 2013, on the pretext of cleaning their septic tank.

The next evening, the police found Gharu’s decapitated body, with his limbs severed, in the tank. The mutilated bodies of Thanvar and Kandare were found in a well in the village on January 3, the police had said.

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