A court has rejected an application of jailed former Ulhasnagar MLA Suresh alias Pappu Kalani seeking direction to jail authorities to produce him before court for hearing in the Ghanshyam Bhatija murder case.
Kalani is serving life imprisonment awarded to him in December 2013 in the 1990 murder case of Ghanshyam’s younger brother Inder Bhatija. He is also an accused in the Ghanshyam Bhatija murder case, in which he is facing trial.
The regular hearing in the 1990 Ghanshyam Bhatija murder case began in the Kalyan court. Besides Kalani, there are five other accused.
District Judge M J Mirza rejected the application filed by the counsel of Kalani seeking to produce him before the court for hearing in the case.
Opposing Kalani’s application, Special Public Prosecutor Vikas Patil said that there was no need to produce him in the court for hearing as video conferencing facility is available in the jail and it could be used.
He said that presenting him in court by bringing him all the way from the jail involved risk, and hence only the video conferencing facility be used.
The prosecutor informed the court that an inquiry has been ordered into the last month’s incident where a picture, taken on mobile when Kalani was last brought to the court for hearing, had gone viral and kicked up a row.
The cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses by the defence counsel will begin from July 19.
Kalani and four others had been convicted and awarded life sentence in 2013 in the murder case of Inder Bhatija.
While Ghanshyam (35) was shot dead on February 27, 1990, his younger brother Inder (30) was gunned down two months later (April 28). Both the murders had taken place in Ulhasnagar town in Thane district.
Bhatijas were relatives of Kalani, but the political rivalry between the families led to their murder, according to the police.
As per the case history, the Bhatija brothers, while working for a BJP candidate during the 1990 Assembly polls, had caught the workers of Kalani, who was then contesting the election on a Congress ticket, indulging in bogus voting on the day of polling on February 27.
When the Bhatija brothers objected to it, Kalani threatened them and, after the polling, under instructions from him three other convicts fired at Bhatija brothers, in which Ghanshyam died. Although Inder managed to escape, he was shot dead two months later.
