PUNE: The court of additional sessions judge G P Agrawal on Wednesday convicted and sentenced 26-year-old Eknath Tukaram Sutar of Nikte Vasti in Pirangut to life imprisonment for stabbing a utensils trader to death at the weekly market in Pirangut on December 14, 2014, over personal enmity.
Sutar has been lodged in the Yerawada central jail ever since his arrest on the day of the incident and would get the benefit of set off for the period served so far in jail, the court said.
A day prior to the murder, Sutar and the victim, Nilesh Kamble, had an altercation over some matter and the former had threatened Kamble with dire consequences.
Kamble had later informed his cousin Amol Mankar about the same. Around 3.45pm on December 14, 2014, Kamble was busy selling utensils at his shop when Sutar approached and launched a brutal assault on him with a big knife.
The daylight assault had at the time caused a major sensation across the town.
Hearing the victim’s cries, Mankar and other shopkeepers, including Lalit Mankar, Bandu Kamble and Santosh Waghmare rushed to the spot and saw Sutar dealing knife blows to the victim before throwing away the weapon nearby and attempting the run away.
Mankar and others, however, apprehended Sutar and handed him over to Police Patil Prakash Pawle.
A critically injured Kamble was rushed to a private hospital in the Kothrud area where the doctors declared him brought dead.
In the ensuing investigation, the Paud police seized the murder weapon, Sutar’s clothes which had blood stains of the victim, and also recorded statements of the eye-witnesses and other witnesses.
During the trial, Sutar had taken a defence of being falsely implicated by other shopkeepers out of some grudge.
Public prosecutor S S More had examined a total of seven witnesses in support of the prosecution’s case.
The court of additional sessions judge G P Agrawal relied on the “unblemished” evidence recorded by the eye-witnesses as well as the chemical analysis reports relating to seizure of the murder weapon, blood stained clothes and related facts established by the panch witnesses, while holding Sutar guilty of murder.
