Court sends NCP activist in judicial custody

Mumbai, May 8 (UNI) A local court today rejected the bail application of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) activist and remanded him to judicial custody till May 22.

Rejecting the bail application of Arvind Sawant, Kurla Additional Magistrate Vaghmare sentenced him to judicial custody.

Sawant was arrested on April 28 night in connection with the murder of his wife, Chanda, on December 6, 2001, following a directive of Sessions Judge N D Deshpande to the Sion police to reopen and investigate the murder case afresh.

In 2001, police had arrested two persons--Ramesh Raju Pujari and Sudhakar Krishna Pujari--in connection with the murder case and charges were framed against them.

On March 14 this year, the judge had held Ramesh guilty and sentenced him to four years rigorous imprisonment, while Sudhakar was discharged in September last year due to lack of evidence against him.

Ramesh, in his confessional statement before a magistrate, had said that Sawant was the main conspirator in the murder.

While passing the judgement, the judge had observed that there was sufficient ground to proceed against Sawant and others involved in the crime as per the first investigation conducted by Sion police, but further investigations were hampered as the case was suddenly transferred to the DCB CID (Crime).

The Judge then directed Senior Inspector of Sion police station to reinvestigate the role of Sawant in the murder case.

UNI PVN SSS SKB RL RS2008