A court in Maharashtra’s Thane district acquitted four men accused of 2022 murder case of a man, citing that the prosecution had based the case entirely on circumstantial evidence, reported the PTI.

Principal District and Sessions Judge S B Agrawal acquitted the accused, Pravin Ramdas Jagtap, Rahul Virbhan Suryavanshi, Akshay Lahu Patil, and Ajinkya Ramdas Patil, of charges under sections 302 (murder), 120(B) (criminal conspiracy), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), and 364 (abduction) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A copy of the order dated October 17 was made available on Thursday. 

According to the prosecution, cousins Akshay Lahu Patil and Ajinkya Ramdas Patil had a long-running dispute with the victim, Mangesh Maruti Patil, over ancestral property and plans to open a beer shop. They allegedly hired Pravin Jagtap and Rahul Suryavanshi for Rs 50,000 to kill him, as per the PTI.

On April 13, 2022, Mangesh was allegedly lured with alcohol, strangled, and had his throat slit in the Murbad area. His body was recovered six days later, the prosecution claimed.

However, after hearing arguments from both sides, the court found that the prosecution’s evidence was inconclusive.

The judge noted that the alleged motive — the dispute over property and business — was vague and unsubstantiated, as per the PTI.

The court also observed that the victim’s family had not raised suspicion against the accused, despite several visits to the police station, and that the recovery of the body, weapon, and clothes was doubtful.

“This, by itself, creates doubt about these panchanamas, as well as the claim that the body and place were discovered at the instance of accused Pravin Jagtap. The recovery was further tainted by the admission that a police officer had informed others about the dead body a day before the official recovery,” the court stated, the news agency reported.

In an another case, earlier this week, a Thane court had acquitted two men accused of a murder in 2023, citing the prosecution`s failure to establish a complete and convincing chain of circumstantial evidence to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

According to the news agency PTI, while the court accepted that the victim, Ravindra Pardeshi (49), had died a homicidal death, as confirmed by the postmortem report, a prosecution witness, and the testimony of the deceased`s daughter, Principal District and Sessions Judge S. B. Agrawal noted several critical gaps in the prosecution`s case.

The incident occurred on February 28, 2023, in the Jambhali Naka area of Thane city. According to the prosecution, a dispute over a street stall allegedly led the accused, Dhurupchand alias Dhruv Vishwanath Patwa (35) and Ashraf Hajrat Ali (23), to fatally assault Pardeshi with a chopper and an iron hammer. The victim was found in a pool of blood by his family and was declared dead at the hospital.

(with PTI inputs)

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