Mumbai, June 25: The Bombay High Court on Thursday commuted the death sentences of two men convicted in the 2013 kidnapping and murder of a 22-year-old man in Nashik, sentencing them instead to life imprisonment for 30 years.
HC Commutes Death Sentence
A Bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande partly allowed the appeals filed by convicts Chetan Yashwantrao Pagare and Aman Prakatsingh Jat against their conviction and death sentence awarded by a Nashik Special Court in December 2022. The Bench also rejected the State’s plea seeking confirmation of the death penalty.
According to the prosecution, Vipin Bafna, a resident of Ojhar in Nashik district, went missing on June 8, 2013, after leaving for a dance class. His father, Gulabchand Bafna, later informed the police that Vipin had called home that night claiming he would stay at a friend’s house as he was late for class. However, the dance academy later confirmed that he had not attended.
Kidnapping And Murder Case
The following day, an unidentified caller used Vipin’s mobile phone to demand a ransom of Rs 1 crore from his father, claiming he had been kidnapped. No further contact was made, and the phone was subsequently switched off.
Vipin’s body was discovered in a field in Adgaon on June 14, 2013. Police arrested five persons and invoked charges of murder, kidnapping and provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
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While awarding the death penalty, the Special Court had noted that Vipin had no prior enmity with the accused and suffered 26 injuries inflicted with deadly weapons.
Describing the murder as “heinous” and “diabolical”, the court held that it fell within the “rarest of rare” category, observing that the crime had shocked the collective conscience of society.
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