Nearly five years after youngsters Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez were brutally stabbed to death when they resisted some eve-teasers’ attempt to molest their girl friends near a restaurant at Andheri in north Mumbai, a special court on Thursday convicted all the four accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment until death.
Additional Sessions Judge Vrushali Joshi, who presides over a special women’s court in Mumbai, held Jitendra Rane (29), Satish Dulhaj (39), Sunil Bodh (24) and Deepak Tival (23) guilty of murder, outraging the modesty of women and other charges of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and awarded them life imprisonment till their death.
The family members of Keenan and Reuben had not pressed for capital punishment, but had rooted for a full life term in jail.
Talking to media persons outside the court, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said that all charges of the prosecution were proved in the case, but ‘It is not a rarest of the rare case’.
“There is direct evidence to show that the accused were eve-teasing and molesting girls when the victims tried to stop it. This is a pre-determined murder and the accused had even threatened them with their life and had come back with weapons to attack them after some time….the evidence of the two girls bolstered the case”, Nikam said.
Describing the verdict as “victory for all”, Keenen’s father Valerian Santos said, “Today all I can say is that the verdict is a victory for all. This victory is not mine, this is Keenan’s and Reuben’s victory which I have been hoping to give them as a present. Keenen’s birthday has gone in March, I had hoped to gift him this”
“I am happy that the court has granted life imprisonment to them. I am also happy that the molestation section (charge) was also applied,” Valerian said.
Describing the four convicts as termites, Valerian said, “I call the killers as terminates. like termites spoil furniture, these termites have spoiled the lives of girls and women. These termites should not be let loose in the society. Today, pest control has been done on these people”
The incident took place between 2200 hrs and 2230 hrs on October 20, 2011, when a group of seven youngsters —including Keenan (25), Reuben (27) and their girl friends — had gone to party and watch on television a one-day international cricket match between India-England at Amboli Bar and Kitchen, a bar-cum-restaurant at Amboli in north-Mumbai.
After the match the group stopped by at a paan shop just outside the restaurant, where four men led by Jitendra Rana began passing lewd comments against the women in the group.
Keenan and Reuben confronted Rana and his friends and managed to drive them away. However, minutes later, Rana returned with a group. Before long, Keenan was stabbed in the abdomen, while Reuben was beaten with bamboo sticks and stabbed. Both Keenan and Reuben bravely resisted the attack on them.
No help was forthcoming for the two youngsters from onlookers and passers-by. Even the staff of the restaurant where the two youngsters had partied along with other members of their group, did not come to the rescue of the duo.
The badly injured Keenan and Reuben were rushed to the nearby Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital. While Keenan died on his way to the hospital, Reuben succumbed to injuries on October 31. While Keenan was a bar tender in a five-star hotel, Reuben was unemployed.
All the four accused were arrested by the Amboli police a day after the incident.
On January 16, 2012, the Amboli police filed a 416 page charge-sheet in the Keenan-Reuben double murder case, in the Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate’s court.
There were in all 21 witnesses in the case, including Keenan’s girl friend and other friend present at the crime site on the night of the incident. Ahead of the filing of charge-sheet, the police had recorded the statements of all the 21 witnesses in the case.
The case was committed to a fast-track trial sessions court of Judge NP Dalvi at Sewri on February 29, 2012.
On October 23, 2012, a Sewri sessions court framed charges against the four accused — Jitendra, Satish, Sunil and Deepak (19) — for murder, criminal conspiracy and molestation.
During the trial, the Prosecution examined as many as 245 witnesses.