There were emotional scenes in the sessions court presided by Judge V. D. Jadhavar during the final hearing of the defense counsel’s arguments in the alleged Lakhan Bhaiyya fake encounter case on Tuesday. The court then slated passing of the order for July 12.
Most of the accused broke down when they were asked to give their final comments in the case. The prosecution had on Monday demanded death sentences for the 13 policemen convicted, and two police informers.
Following this, the distraught convicted policemen couldn’t hold back their tears. Police constables Pandurang Kokam and Sandip Sardar blamed the system and pleaded for mercy. “We were just following the orders given to us by the senior officers,” Sardar told the court.
The defense argued that leniency be shown to the convicted. Senior inspector Pradeep Suryawanshi, who led the encounter team and is convicted for murder, said, “My brother, retired ACP Dilip Suryawanshi, had enmity with special investigation team (SIT) officer Sunil Gaonkar. I have been falsely implicated in the case.”
He further said, “I had demanded that the four witnesses — Anil Bheda, Aruna Bheda, Ram Prasad Gupta and Ganesh Iyer — undergo a lie-detector test, but that never happened. Besides, the authenticity of the bullet recovered from the spot where the incident took place was never debated.”