Court convicts 4 in 2015 Malvani hooch tragedy

Mumbai court convicts four in 2015 hooch tragedy, acquits 10; sentencing arguments to be heard on May 6.

A sessions court on Monday, April 29, 2024, convicted four accused and acquitted 10 others in the 2015 hooch tragedy in which more than 100 people lost their lives in Mumbai’s Malvani area.

Additional Sessions Judge Swapnil Tawshikar found the accused — Raju Tapkar, Donald Patel, Francis D’mello and Mansoor Khan — guilty of criminal conspiracy, culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other charges under the Indian Penal Code and Bombay Prohibition Act. The court will hear the prosecution and defence arguments on sentencing on May 6.

The judge, while pronouncing the order, held that “there was a marathon of evidence in the case and then a marathon final arguments”.

While the prosecution argued that all the accused persons were involved in a criminal conspiracy, the court held that the examination of nearly 240 witnesses did not define a clear chain of evidence.

During the trial, special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat informed the court that the deaths of people by consuming spurious liquor in the State is a rarest of the rare case since only one or two such deaths have occurred in the last two decades in Maharashtra.