Hearing of the 1990 Ghanshyam Bhatija murder case involving the jailed former Ulhasnagar MLA Suresh alias Pappu Kalani and five others will begin in a Thane court here from tomorrow.
The cross examination of the witnesses by the defence counsel will start from tomorrow.
Kalani and four others have already been convicted and awarded life sentence in the murder case of Ghanshyam's younger brother Inder Bhatija.
While Ghanshyam (35) was shot dead on February 27, 1990, his younger brother Inder (30) was gunned down two months later (April 28). Both the murders had taken place in Ulhasnagar town in Thane district.
Bhatijas were relatives of Kalani, but the political rivalry between the families led to their murder.
As per the case history, the Bhatija brothers, while working for a BJP candidate during the 1990 Assembly polls, had caught the workers of Kalani, who was contesting the election on a Congress ticket, indulging in bogus voting on the day of polling on February 27.
When the Bhatija brothers objected to it, Kalani threatened them and, after the polling, under instructions from him three other convicts fired at Bhatija brothers, in which Ghanshyam died. Although Inder managed to escape, he was shot dead two months later.
23 years after the incident, on December 3, 2013, a sessions court in Kalyan convicted Kalani and three others-- Baba Gabriel, Bacchi Pande and Arshad Mohammed Tahir -- in the Inder Bhatija murder case and sentenced all of them to life imprisonment.
The sentence awarded by Kalyan court was upheld by the Supreme Court. While Kalani was held guilty under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, three others were held guilty under section 302 (murder) of the IPC. Two others-- Narendra Ramsinghani and Richard Fernandes-- were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Kalani, Gabriel, Pande, Arshad, Ramsinghani and Fernandes are accused in Ghanshyam murder case as well.
