Thane, Jan 07: The Thane Sessions Court has acquitted six men who were arrested in connection with the alleged attempt to murder social worker Ronald Anthony Issac. Issac is an active person in the Thane civic body polls. The accused were acquitted on the grounds of serious lapses in the police investigation and lack of independent witness testimony.
Court flags lack of independent witnesses
Principal Sessions Judge S. B. Agrawal, while delivering the judgment, observed that although several independent persons were present at the spot, none were examined by the prosecution nor were their statements recorded.
Instead, the witnesses produced before the court were either friends, employees, or persons having political affiliations with the victim, casting serious doubt on the credibility of the prosecution’s case.
Key witnesses named in FIR not examined
“The names of important independent witnesses, which were specifically mentioned in the FIR, were never examined by the police,” the court noted. Considering these deficiencies, the judge held that it was unsafe to conclude that the prosecution had proved the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, and accordingly acquitted all six accused.
Prosecution alleged criminal conspiracy
According to the prosecution, Anand Salve (31), Ganpat Salve (58), Gautam More (34), Santosh Bansode (26), Amol Kamble (26), and Santosh Venkat (35) were accused of hatching a criminal conspiracy due to previous enmity with Issac.
The prosecution alleged that the accused formed an unlawful assembly and waited outside a public toilet, where they planned to assault and kill the victim.
Alleged attack outside public toilet
As per the FIR, when Issac came out of the public toilet, Gautam More allegedly caught hold of him, while Anand Salve and Santosh Bansode allegedly attacked him repeatedly with swords.
The victim reportedly fell to the ground while trying to defend himself, after which Amol Kamble allegedly held him by the hair and slit his throat with a hexablade, before the accused fled the spot in a waiting car.
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Prosecution case found weak
However, the court found that the prosecution failed to establish the sequence of events convincingly. The absence of neutral eyewitnesses and the failure to examine crucial witnesses named in the FIR weakened the prosecution’s case beyond repair.
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