Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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| APP Jyoti Wajani, Adv Prakash Jaiswal in premises of Nyay Mandir after the court held the accused guilty on Saturday. |
- District Court to pronounce quantum of punishment on February 3
- No witness in the case turns hostile
- Citizens, media, lawyers, cops throng the court premises to know the verdict in the case that had shaken the entire State
By Dheeraj Fartode
PRINCIPAL District & Sessions Judge K K Sonawane, on Saturday, convicted Rajesh Dhanalal Daware (19) and Arvind Abhilash Singh (23) holding them guilty of kidnapping and killing of Yug, the eight-year-old son of well-known dental surgeons Dr Mukesh and Dr Premal Chandak, for ransom. The court would pronounce the quantum of punishment to them on February 3.
The judge convicted the two killers in the courtroom jam-packed with lawyers, mediapersons, police personnel, and others who somehow managed to gain entry in the premises. The city was awaiting the verdict of the court, and many people thronged the court premises. However, defence lawyers Adv Manmohan Upadhyaya and Adv Pradip Agrawal were not present in the court.
Earlier, led by Additional Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani, the prosecution had submitted concrete evidence based on account of eye-witnesses, autopsy report and CCTV footages against Daware and Singh to prove that they had abducted the boy for ransom with a common intention, killed him and tried to destroy the evidence. The prosecution also had submitted the evidence about seizure of two vehicles -- a Scooty Pep and a Hero Honda motorcycle -- used by them for committing the crime, Yug’s T-shirt, clothes worn by them at the time of crime, and a boulder kept on the boy’s body. The call data records, including the call made by the killers for ransom, details about their tower location from the date and time of kidnapping till killing of the boy were also submitted to the court.
During the trial, the court examined as many as 50 prosecution witnesses and seven defence witnesses, besides putting before Daware and Singh about 800 questions related to the heart-rending incident that had shaken the entire country. Interestingly, not a single witness in the case turned hostile.
Previously, the defence had made written submissions to the court denying the role of Daware and Singh in the cold-blooded and brutal murder of the dental surgeon’s lovely and innocent son. The defence had also disputed the prosecution story and discovery of material evidence.
Daware, who was earlier working as computer operator-cum-office assistant at Dr Chandak’s Dental Clinic, had hatched the conspiracy to kidnap the boy for ransom. He decided to teach Dr Mukesh Chandak a lesson as the latter had sacked him from the job after repeatedly hurling abuses at him.
Accordingly, Daware and Singh kidnapped Yug after he got down from the school bus on September 1, 2014. A Standard II student of Centre Point School, Wardhaman Nagar, Yug was kidnapped by them from outside his residence near Chhapru Nagar Chowk, Wardhaman Nagar, on Old Bhandara Road. Yug went with Daware as the latter was in the uniform of Dr Chandak’s clinic. Yug was rendered unconscious by chloroform-dipped handkerchief by Singh, who was riding pillion on the two-wheeler on which the boy was taken. Yug accompanied Daware as he knew him being his father’s office assistant.
Daware and Singh made calls for ransom of Rs 10 crore which was whittled down to Rs 5 crore to be delivered in Mumbai. They then took Yug to Babulkhera village near Patansaongi, about 27 kms from city. Daware and Singh panicked when the former received a call from police to present himself for questioning. It was then that they decided to kill the boy. They strangulated and smothered Yug to death. They even smashed his head with stones and buried the body in sand near a culvert on Gomti-Gumthala Road. When water washed away some sand, they placed huge stones over Yug's body to cover it up.
Later, cops arrested Daware and Singh and registered an offence under Sections 302, 363, 364(a), 201, 120 (b), 34 of the Indian Penal Code.
The citizens and especially the school children who had participated in ‘Justice for Yug’ movement, are now anxiously awaiting the strictest punishment to the perpetrators of the brutal and cold-blooded murder of the innocent kid.
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