Five get life imprisonment in murder case

Five persons were today sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in a 2004 murder case where two brothers were brutally killed in Bhayander locality here over a petty quarrel. The sentence was pronounced by Thane Additional Sessions Judge N B Dhaytadak to five accused --Deepak Dhonde, 21, Sujit Raut, 28, Suresh Adhikari, 32, Kamlesh Adhikari, 30 and Himmat Bist, 25 -- out of the total six charged with rioting, unlawful assembly and murder. One of them --Nilesh Dhonde, 23-- died during the pendency of the trial. Additional Public Prosecutor Hemlata Deshmukh told the court that the quarrel among the youths broke out over cricket following which two brothers were attacked with stumps, bats, sodawater bottles, and knife resulting in their death. As per the complaint given by the mother of the victims, Shaila Shiv Bacchan Singh the incident took place on January 25, 2004 when she and her husband had gone out and were informed about the attack and found her two sons Kamal Singh, 24 and Ramesh Singh, 21 lying in a pool of blood near the Flour Mills. They were immediately taken to Bhagwati hospital, where the two succumbed to their injuries on the following day, the court was told. The court relied on eyewitness account of one Avadesh Singh and recovery of sodawater bottles, stumps, bats etc from the scene of offence and convicted the accused, who were tried under sections 302, 147,148 and 149 of the IPC.