Nagpur: Man sentenced to death for killing 5 family members

On Saturday, a man was sentenced to death by a Nagpur court in Maharashtra for murdering five members of his family in a property dispute.

Vivek Gulab Palatkar (35) was found guilty by Additional Sessions Judge R.S. Pawaskar and was convicted of charges under appropriate sections of the Indian Penal Code. The judge sentenced him to death and also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him.

According to the case details, the incident occurred in June 2018 when Palatkar visited his sister's residence in the Nandanavan area of the city and attacked her, as well as his four-year-old son, niece, brother-in-law Kamlakar Motiram Pawankar, and Kamlakar's mother.

The accused attacked the victims with sharp and heavy objects while they were asleep and killed them. Palatkar fled the scene and was apprehended by the police almost 15 days after the murders, it was stated.

During the trial, Additional Public Prosecutor Abhay Jikar stated that the case was one of the rarest of rare cases, and therefore the death penalty was appropriate.

The accused, Palatkar, had earlier been found guilty of killing his wife but was acquitted by the Bombay High Court in 2017. Kamlakar had assisted him with the case, but Palatkar was resentful towards him for transferring two acres of land to his stepsister and asking for Rs 5 lakh towards legal expenses. The case involved 29 witnesses, two of whom were spared by the accused during the incident.