Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj katha day 8: Baba Ramdev calls for ‘educational freedom’
Ramdev said that It is now time to repeal the Indian Education Act of 1835.
Statesman News Service
Mumbai, 12 July
For the first time in the history of Mumbai police, 13 cops of varying ranks and eight others ~ their informers ~ were today summarily convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the controversial Ramnarayan Gupta encounter-murder case.
The sessions judge Mr VD Jadwar in his much-awaited verdict confirmed that the encounter that took place in Versova on 11 November 2006 was, indeed, a cold blooded murder as was reported by the Bombay High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team
in 2010.
Senior inspector Pradeep Suryavanshi and his two colleauges Tanaji Desai and Dilip Palande were found guilty of conspiracy under section 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code. Others have been sentenced on proved charges of murder under section 302 of the IPC (murder) and kidnapping.
Ramnarayan Gupta or Lakhanbhaiyya, a known gangster of Chota Rajan mafia, was wanted in over a dozen serious offences including murder. He was picked up by the Mumbai cops from his Navi Mumbai home and brought to Versova. He was gunned down in a staged encounter. The sessions judge, however, did not agree with the prosecutor Ms Vidya Kasale that the case should be viewed as "the rarest of rare" inviting the death sentence.
The case had a curious twist in the early days when one of the eyewitnesses Anil Bheda who also lived in Navi Mumbai and had been a close accomplice of Lakhanbhaiyya had gone missing ahead of his deposition in the court. His decomposed body was found three weeks after his abduction. A key witness was eliminated.
All cops, led by senior PI Suryavanshi, argued that the court should tell them how to deal with an offender who fired at them to kill.
They also said they have been following instructions of their superiors but did not name any senior officer.
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