On Thursday the life sentence of Nijam Asgar Hashmi, who beheaded 20-year-old Umesh Ingale, the cousin of his girlfriend Geetanjali Ingale, was suspended by the Bombay High Court and granted bail.
The last-seen theory was termed unworkable by a bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Shyam C. Chandak, who claimed that it was a prima facie impossible to accept that the weapon used to kill the victim, which was unearthed at the accused’s instance from a ditch with water up to the knee contained human blood
‘It is important to note here that, though the weapon used in the present crime was recovered from a ditch/pond in the presence of P.W.2, from a place filled with water up to knee level, the Chemical Analyser Report mentions that, human blood was found on the said weapon. Prima facie we cannot accept the prosecution case to that extent’, pronounced the court.
The police arrested then-19-year-old Nizam Asgar Hashmi on the charges of murdering Umesh Ingale in 2018 because he didn’t like the latter’s closeness with his cousin, who was also the culprit’s girlfriend.
On 19th June 2018, a man’s decapitated and partially nude body was discovered by many labourers close to Punyadham Ashram in Pune’s Kondhwa Budruk neighbourhood.
A bloodstained T-shirt and a sandal were also found within fifty feet of the radius. The victim was attacked with a sharp object, which led to injuries to his hands and abdomen.
The assailant then undressed his clothes to unclear the evidence. During the investigation, the severed head and the murder weapon were discovered in a canal.
The prosecution stated that the perpetrator asked Umesh Ingale to have sheer khurma with him on the occasion of Eid and had intended to get rid of him.
According to the prosecution, Nijam Asgar Hashmi attacked the young man while he was eating and then disfigured his body to hide his identity. On 30th September 2023, the Pune Sessions court declared him guilty of murder in violation of Section 302 and proof of disappearance in violation of Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to life in jail after 24 witnesses testified during the trial.
On 19th June 2018 at around 7:50 pm the prosecution asserted that Nijam Hashmi and Umesh Ingale were visible in CCTV footage close to the location where the body came to light.
The corpse was found around three days after the two were last seen together which was a significant amount of time gap, according to the bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Shyam Chandak.
The bench noted, ‘Applicant has been behind bars since the date of his arrest i.e. 21st June 2018 and has undergone more than 5 years and 6 months in incarceration as of today. Given the above during the pendency of the Appeal we are inclined to suspend the sentence of the Applicant and enlarge him on bail.
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