A Pune court awarded a death sentence to Santosh Mane, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation driver who mowed down nine and injured 13 people in a fit of road rage. Mane, on the morning of January 25 last year, drove against the traffic from the Swargate bus depot in Pune hitting vehicles and people with police and citizens in chase. He was reportedly under professional stress during the incident.
Delivering the judgment in a packed courtroom, additional sessions judge V.K. Shewale said, “The family members of the victims will suffer with agony for the rest of their life. The accused did not show any remorse both during and after the incident. Many of the injured are finding it difficult to bear the cost of the treatment. And the cause behind the act was that his seniors assigned him a tougher duty.” Mane was convicted guilty of murder and other charges on April 3.
Defence lawyer Dhananjay Mane argued that the accused did not have any past criminal record or a history of attacking anyone.
“Neither did he have an enmity with any of the deceased. He is the sole breadwinner of his family and thus the court should take a lenient view in his judgment. It should give him a chance to reform,” said Mr Mane.
However, public prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar said, “Innocent bystanders, college students and pedestrians, going about their routine were killed in the heinous act. The case perfectly qualifies as the rarest of the rare and therefore the accused deserves a death sentence.”
Justice Shewale also took a dig at Dr Santosh Burte, the Solapur-based psychiatrist for “submitting false evidence” to the court.
“Dr Burte earlier claimed that he treated Mane for depression on six different occasions in 2010 but later told the media that he treated him only once. This is a clear case of hiding evidence from the court. We have issued him a showcause notice asking him why he shouldn’t be tried for falsifying evidence,” said Justice Shewale.
The judge, during the last order on April 3, had said Dr Burte failed to provide the certificate for Electro-Convulsive Therapy, which he claimed to have administered on Mane.