By IANS
Mumbai : There was pin drop silence in the court Monday morning when sessions judge S.P. Davare pronounced the most feared and yet expected words – holding Pravin Mahajan “guilty” of shooting dead his elder brother and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod in April last year.
Convicted under the Indian Penal Code’s dreaded Section 302 for murder and 449 for criminal trespass with intent to kill, the quantum of sentence that Pravin will get will be battled out between the prosecution and defence Tuesday.
Prosecution’s special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam has already made clear that they would seek the noose for Pravin. The defence is hoping for a life sentence.
Davare also observed that if there was indeed a scuffle between the two brothers, then why did Pravin not help Pramod when bullets were fired on him.
Instead, he gave priority to summoning the police rather than providing medical assistance to Pramod, the judge observed.
Moreover, the bullets were fired on the vital parts of Pramod but no blood was splashed on Pravin’s shirt, which is not possible, if the duo were having a scuffle.
The judge wondered what was the need for Pravin to carry a loaded revolver to Pramod’s house.
The court also rejected the financial angle for the killing projected by the prosecution.
The circumstantial evidence and last words uttered by Pramod to his brother-in-law Munde, accepted as a dying declaration, supported the prosecution case by clearing the air that it was not an accidental firing but intentional.
The court had come to the conclusion by considering prosecution witnesses, circumstantial evidence, medical reports, ballistic reports, and fingerprint reports, supporting that the murder was pre-planned.
Pramod’s widow Rekha and Munde were the star witnesses of this sensational nine-month long trial.
Their deposition before the court highlighted Pravin sending a threatening SMS to Pramod, which introduced the SMS dimension into the case and was scrutinised till the end of the trial. The SMSs stored in Pramod’s mobile instrument became an important part of the evidence.
The SMS in question was finally established as authentic and taken into consideration. Earlier, the defence had successfully demonstrated the fabrication of the SMS on a sample phone but failed to prove that the SMS stored in Pramod’s phone was a fabricated one and not the original.