Over 15 years after Keenan Santosh and his close friend Ruben Fernandes were brutally killed after they confronted a trio which passed lewd comments at their female friends, the Bombay high court on Thursday upheld the conviction of Jitendra Fakirchand Rana and sentenced him to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
A division bench of Justice Makarand Karnik and Justice Sandesh D Patil held that there was no cogent evidence to convict two others, Sunil Omprakash Both and Deepak Ishwar Omprakash Piwal, of murder charges. One of the accused, Satish Dulgaj, died during the pendency of their appeal in the high court against the conviction All four accused were arrested soon after the incident. However, it upheld their conviction for causing simple hurt and the one-year sentence imposed by the special court in 2016. At the conclusion of the trial on May 5, 2016, the sessions court convicted all of them of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment- for the rest of their lives- considering that the episode started with a vulgar act by the accused, who then brutally killed two young male friends of the woman after they confronted them.
