Thane court acquits two accused in 2017 murder case

Thane: A court in Maharashtra's Thane district has acquitted two persons accused of murdering a man in 2017, noting that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against them.

Additional sessions judge D B Bangde held that Kunal Rajendra Wagh (35) and Rahul Ramesh Kadam (34) needed to be given the benefit of the doubt.

A copy of the order dated April 4 was made available on Tuesday.

The prosecutor informed the court that the two men had killed the victim, Sambhaji Pandurang Dhaneshwar, on July 23, 2017, after he refused to give them money.

The duo had allegedly throttled the victim and later smashed his head with a stone, he said.

The judge, in his order, noted that the investigating officer had admitted that the scene of the incident was an open, crowded place and easily accessible to anyone.

The stone and cloth allegedly used to kill the victim were recovered by police much later after the incident, and the seizure is doubtful, he said.

"There is no eyewitness to the incident. The prosecution failed to produce CCTV footage of the alleged incident, an important piece of evidence. Therefore, the prosecution did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that both the accused murdered Sambhaji Pandurang Dhaneshwar," the order said.