SC stays death penalty of Maratha man who murdered three Dalit men

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the death penalty of Sandip Madhav Kurhe, who murdered three Dalit men in Sonai village of Maharashtra's Ahmednagar on January 1, 2013. The bench agreed to examine the appeal filed by the convict. After brief submission by his lawyer, they stayed the execution of the death penalty and tagged the appeal with the pending appeals of other convicts.

Six Maratha men, including Raghunath Darandale, Ramesh, Darandale, Prakash Darandale, Ganesh alias Pravin Darandale, Ashok Navgire and Kurhe, were sentenced to death in 2018 by a sessions court in Nashik for murdering Gharu (24), Sandeep Thanvar (25) and Rahul Kandare (20). The three Dalit men, employed as sweepers, were killed over an inter-caste love affair between Sachin Gharu and a girl from the Maratha community. On December 2, 2019, the Bombay High Court had upheld the penalty to four people- Ramesh Darandale, Prakash Darandale, Ganesh alias Pravin Darandale, and Kurhe- but acquitted Navgire for lack of evidence. Raghunath Darandale died during the pendency of the case.