A 21-year-old youth, who had accidentally fatally shot his friend at Kashimira in the district in 2011, was sentenced to four years rigorous imprisonment by a district court here.
Thane ad-hoc District Judge M M Wali Mohammed awarded the sentence to Kiran More here yesterday, but acquitted five other youths in the case.
Police had arrested all the six friends and booked them under various sections of the IPC including 302 (punishment for murder).
The court, after hearing both the sides, convicted More under section 304 (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and sentenced him to four years rigorous imprisonment.
According to Additional public prosecutor Ashok Khamkar, Nitesh Dandekar, 22, who was married and worked with a private company, had gone to the jungle on September 19, 2011 along with his half a dozen friends to catch crabs.
While his friends returned the next morning, they could not give any satisfactory reply about Nitesh's whereabouts, Khamkar said.
When Nitesh's family got to know that he had gone missing, they launched a search, but in vain. His mother then lodged a missing person report with the police.
Police then detained his friends and after a thorough interrogation, they told that More had accidentally fired from his country-made gun, in which Nitesh had died. His friends then hid his body in Kashi village and covered it with huge stones.
