Man gets life imprisonment 20 years after murder

A court here has awarded life imprisonment to a man 20 years after he stabbed a person to death for waking him up from sleep in suburban Santacruz.

Additional Sessions Judge Dinesh Kothalikar awarded the sentence to Khushi Gafar (50).

Gafar had stabbed one Ashok Yadav to death for waking him up from sleep in 1999. The accused was sleeping by the roadside in Santacruz area when the incident happened.

The trial in the case was interrupted twice after Gafar was found "mentally unsound" to face the court's proceedings.

When the trial was in progress in 2001, it was revealed that Gafar was mentally unstable and hence incapable of making his defence. Thereafter, the court sent him for medical treatment.

The trial resumed after the accused was declared fit by the doctors.

Thereafter in 2012, during the recording of a statement, Gafar was found to be giving irrelevant answers and referred to the doctors to examine his mental health, stalling the trial once again.

He was declared fit by the Institute for Psychological Health, Thane, in February 2019, and the trial resumed.

"During the trial, the accused was sent for treatment of schizophrenia. However, it did not establish that his mental condition was such at the time of the incident and whether he was incapable of knowing the nature of the act or that he was doing what was either wrong or contrary to law," the court observed in the order.

The court found him guilty under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) 302 (murder) and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The accused has been in jail since 1999 and he is entitled for a set-off, the judge said.