A sessions court in Mumbai sentenced a man to life imprisonment for killing his friend, a tempo driver, over a dispute. Bilal Sayyed was found guilty under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. The court acquitted two others. According to the prosecution, on September 29, 2018, Sayyed with an associate had gone to Khopoli to buy cattle. They asked Dharma, the tempo driver, to transport the purchased buffaloes in his tempo but he refused. Angered by this, Sayyed took Dharma's phone from him and left for Mumbai. On the next day, Dharma with a few others went to Sayyed to get his phone back and they both had a dispute. The police said Sayyed had then snatched a tocha, an instrument used to break ice, and attacked Dharma with it, causing his death. "It appears that Dharma was under influence of liquor at the time of the incident, as is revealed from the final cause of death report. Still Bilal brought a tocha or something like that and stabbed Dharma four times. Thus, it cannot be said that Bilal did not take undue advantage of the situation. Rather he acted in a cruel manner to use a weapon to stab Dharma in vital part of his body," the court said. It said that the case did not fall under the category of rarest of rare and hence Sayyed could not be given the death penalty.
