MCOCA court acquits eight in 2016 Arihant Builders firing case

Eight accused who were booked for firing at the office of Arihant Builders in Mumbai have been acquitted by a special court due to lack of evidence. The accused allegedly targeted the office because the builder did not give them a contract for supplying construction material.

MUMBAI: A special MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court on Tuesday acquitted eight accused booked for firing at the office of Arihant Builders on February 5, 2016, injuring one of the partners of the firm, as the builder allegedly did not give a contract for supplying construction material to the gang ran by the accused.

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According to the prosecution case, on February 5, 2016, two men in veil entered the office of the builder in Chunabhatti and opened fire at the reception counter injuring one seriously. The injured survived the attack and lodged a police complaint. The case was handed over to the Anti-Extortion Cell for investigation.

During the probe, the police suspected that the firing was done at the behest of Sumit alias Pappu Chandrakant Yerunkar. The police had after the investigation arrested eight accused namely Ajay Raju Karosi, Vinod alias Remo Ramvilas Vishwakarma, Babu alias Tufankumar Vishnukumar Gupta, Yerunkar, Suraj Bhagelu Gaud alias Suraj Mhatre, Rakeshkumar Devendra alias Rajesh and Himanshu alias Rahul Rambalak Rai.

The partner in his statement before the police had claimed that prior to this incident in the month of March-April 2015, accused Umesh Phalle and one Sandeep Thakur had been to the office of Arihant Group of Companies and asked for placing order of supply of material to Yerunkar leader of gang and also, gave threats if they had not placed order for supply of material to Yerunkar they would face dire consequences. However, the partner denied having ever said this to police during the trial.

The prosecution examined 41 witnesses but heavily relied on the confession of Rai. The court noted that before Rai, Karosi had also expressed his willingness to give confession but when he was produced before the DCP he refused to give any confession.

Later, Rai agreed to give a confession which was recorded by DCP Vinayak Deshmukh. The court noted that Rai was not familiar with Marathi and English, but some part of the confession was recorded in English and Hindi. The court noted that after recording the confession, the accused was given the statement to read and sign but the court noted that the accused was not well-versed in English. Besides, Deshmukh could not identify Rai in court; instead, he identified another accused, Vishwakarma as Rai. Because of this, the court refused to accept the confession statement of Rai.

The court found several lacunas in the probe wherein the police claimed to have recovered several articles including eight pistols and mobiles at the behest of the accused during the probe. The court said the prosecution failed to connect the accused with the incident.