Man gets life 20 years after stabbing another for waking him

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A court awarded life imprisonment to a man 20 years after he stabbed a person to death for waking him up from sleep in Santacruz .Additional Sessions Judge Dinesh Kothalikar awarded the sentence to Khushi Gafar, 50.

Gafar had stabbed one Ashok Yadav to death for waking him up from sleep in 1999. The accused was sleeping by the roadside in Santacruz when the incident happened.

The trial in the case was interrupted twice after Gafar was found 'mentally unsound' to face the court's proceedings.

When the trial was in progress in 2001, it was revealed that Gafar was mentally unstable and hence incapable of making his defence. Thereafter, the court sent him for medical treatment. The trial resumed after the accused was declared fit by the doctors.

Thereafter in 2012, during the recording of a statement, Gafar was found to be giving irrelevant answers and referred to the doctors to examine his mental health, stalling the trial once again.

He was declared fit by the Institute for Psychological Health, Thane, in February 2019, and the trial resumed.

Court says
"During the trial, the accused was sent for treatment of schizophrenia. However, it did not establish that his mental condition was such at the time of the incident and whether he was incapable of knowing the nature of the act or that he was doing what was either wrong or contrary to law," the court observed in the order.

The court found him guilty under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) 302 (murder) and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

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