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This is an archive article published on November 19, 2017

Three held guilty for Kopardi rape and murder

The trio — Jitendra Babubal Shinde (21), Santosh Gorakh Bhaval (29) and Nitin Gopinath Bhailume (28) — was convicted for the rape and murder of the Class IX student. Arguments over the quantum of punishment will take place on November 21.

Kopardi case, Kopardi rape murder case, 2016 Kopardi case, 2016 Kopardi rape murder case Judge Suvarna Kevale passed the order in a packed courtroom, which was heard by the public on loudspeakers installed on the court premises. Picture for representational purpose.

THE Ahmednagar District and Sessions Court on Saturday held guilty all the three men arrested in connection with the sensational rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl from Kopardi village in Karjat taluka of Ahmednagar district on July 13, 2016.

The trio — Jitendra Babubal Shinde (21), Santosh Gorakh Bhaval (29) and Nitin Gopinath Bhailume (28) — was convicted for the rape and murder of the Class IX student. Arguments over the quantum of punishment will take place on November 21.

Judge Suvarna Kevale passed the order in a packed courtroom, which was heard by the public on loudspeakers installed on the court premises. A huge police force was deployed in and around the court premises. The three were produced in the court around 11.30 am. The court held Shinde guilty of conspiracy, sexual assault and murder. Bhailume and Bhaval were convicted for criminal conspiracy.

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Family members of the victim, including her parents, sister, brother and relatives, and villagers from Kopardi were present on the court premises. They broke down on hearing the order. The family said all three should be awarded the death penalty.

“Accused No. 1 (Shinde) faced rape and murder charges, while the others were charged with criminal conspiracy,” Special Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam told The Indian Express on Saturday, hours after the verdict. When asked whether it meant only one of them could be handed capital punishment, Nikam said though one of them faced rape and murder charges, the other two were charged with criminal conspiracy, meaning they helped Shinde in committing rape and murder. “Though the charge against the other two accused was less compared to Shinde, the crime is no less,” he said, adding the court will decide the quantum of punishment on November 21. “Till then, we will have to wait,” he said.

Massive protests by the Maratha community had erupted across the state after the incident, demanding capital punishment for all three. Asked whether he would seek capital punishment for all three, Nikam said, “I will have to study various acts of omission and commission by the three. I won’t reveal what punishment we are going to seek for the trio.”

Nikam said the police had not even filed the criminal conspiracy case. “It was filed only when we brought it before the court,” he said. Denying that the trial was delayed, Nikam said, “In fact, the case was over in five months. We examined the first witness five months back and now, five months later, the 31st witness was examined,” he said.

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Nikam said whatever delay happened was because of accused No. 2. “He wanted the chief minister to be examined and also sought my examination. This led to the delay, otherwise the case could have got over much earlier. Ultimately, today the court made it clear the examinations sought by accused No. 2 were not relevant…,” he said.

He said circumstantial evidence proved vital. “Men can lie, circumstances don’t. We meticulously linked all the circumstancial evidence and placed it before the court,” he said. Nikam said compared to urban areas, girls in rural areas do not speak up openly about harassment by anti-social elements. “Parents, especially in rural areas, need to interact with their daughters more and make them speak up,” he said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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