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  ‘I am happy with life imprisonment’

‘I am happy with life imprisonment’

AGE CORRESPONDENT
Published : May 6, 2016, 1:50 am IST
Updated : May 6, 2016, 1:50 am IST

Five years after Keenan Santos and his friend Reuben Fernandes were assaulted and killed by four men — Jitendra Rana, Sunil Bodh, Satish Dulhaj and Dipak Tival — while trying to protect their female f

Five years after Keenan Santos and his friend Reuben Fernandes were assaulted and killed by four men — Jitendra Rana, Sunil Bodh, Satish Dulhaj and Dipak Tival — while trying to protect their female friends from being eve teased, a special court has sentenced four accused to life imprisonment.

No sooner the verdict was out, Keenan’s father, Valerian, said, “They will appeal to higher courts which is their right. Even if they appeal to God, I will still stand in front of Him and ask for justice for my son. I am happy with life imprisonment. They should spend every moment thinking about Keenan and Reuben.” Benjamin Fernandez, a friend of the duo tweeted under the hashtag “KeenanReuben”: “Justice has been served today for our two boys. But this is not the end for us. Eve teasing and molestation has to STOP. Keenan and Reuben sacrificed their lives for this cause. Please don’t let it go in vain.”

Meanwhile, convict Rana told The Asian Age: “The court has wrongly convicted me in this case. I have two children, so there is no question of being involved in eve teasing. I never smoke nor do I drink and I cannot afford to go to that restaurant so there was no reason for me to go to that place. My sister is married in that area and I went to that place when I came to know about some incident afterwards. Since my brother-in-law is from that area, I was supporting people from that locality and hence, police arrested me from my house in Jogeshwari and falsely implicated me in the case.”

Another accused, Both, said, “I was present at the spot in the beginning but I was at some distance when suddenly I heard some noise and saw a group of boys were beating my friend so I went there but they beat me also.” A third accused, Tival’s father, Ishwar, said that he knew his son was innocent and at that time, he was just 18-and-a-half years old so the family had handed him over to police but they falsely implicated him.