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Journalism of Courage
Describing him as a remorseless killer and a heinous criminal whose act was a blot on humanity,a Pune court Monday sentenced Maharashtra state transport bus driver Santosh Maruti Mane to death for killing nine people in the city in a bizarre bus rampage last year.
Manes crime of using a bus as a weapon fell in the rarest of the rare category due to the revolting and ghastly manner in which the massacre was carried out,additional sessions judge V K Shewale said.
On January 25,2012,Mane,41,mowed down nine people and injured 37 in a killing spree that lasted about 40 minutes on a 15-km stretch.
You were fully aware that innocent people were being killed. Several people8230; appealed to you to stop when you crushed your first victim8230; But you,in your arrogance,continued driving the bus8230; with all knowledge and intention, the judge said,addressing Mane.
Your act is inhuman,ghastly and immensely illegal8230; If I give you a punishment less than death,I would be undermining the law, said the judge.
Lawyers defending Mane had pleaded that he had committed the act in a fit of insanity. The judge,however,relied on the testimony of Manes colleagues to conclude that when he committed the act,Mane was in a completely sound mental condition.
