After 18 years, four get life term in murder case

Eighteen years after they walked scot-free out of a Pune sessions court, four Pune-based men — Ganesh Andekar, Shamrao Andekar, Avinash Andekar and Vijay Yadav — were sentenced to life in jail by the Bombay High Court on Tuesday.

The four accused along with 11 others were arrested for murdering an auto-rickshaw driver, Raghunath Karale. On May 11, 1989, a sessions court had acquitted them for lack of evidence.

The incident goes back two decades. For three years a dispute over water had nursed an arch-rivalry between the Andekar bothers and Karale. On October 14, 1986, when Karale was resting in his house in Shukravar Peth, Ganesh came to him and started to abuse him. The squabble was followed by a physical scuffle and Karale ran away. The other accused who had a sword, a stiletto and a knife chased him along with eleven others. They attacked Karale and he succumbed to his injuries.

In the sessions court the prosecution was unable to prove the exact location of the incident as the accused had chased Karale up to a certain distance. In the HC however, additional public prosecutor VB Konde-Deshmukh told the court that the trial court had failed to record that the stains on the weapons seized from the accused matched Karale’s blood group. Also when a constable visited the house of the accused after the incident, they were missing.

Therefore, Justices DG Deshpande and SR Sathe held that there was enough evidence to prove that the accused had indeed murdered Karale.