Thane: In what legal experts are calling an unprecedented coincidence, the Thane District Court has convicted two brothers in separate cases of violence against their own family members. While one was handed a life term for murdering his mother, the other was convicted of assaulting relatives but acquitted of his father’s murder.
Principal District and Sessions Judge S.B. Agrawal delivered both verdicts on September 12. The younger brother, Vishal Arun Alzende (28), was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined ₹10,000 for the brutal murder of his mother, Urmila, on July 19, 2021. The killing, triggered by a quarrel over just ₹20 for rickshaw fare, saw the victim suffer more than 50 stab wounds inflicted with a screwdriver. Eyewitness testimony from Chaitali Alzende, the accused’s sister-in-law, proved crucial. Rejecting the defence’s claim of mental instability, the court ruled it was a “cold-blooded murder.”
In the second case, Vishnu Arun Alzende (37) was acquitted of murdering his father due to lack of corroborating evidence but was convicted under Section 324 of the IPC for assaulting his grandmother and uncle with a weapon in 2016. He was sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment and fined ₹25,000, part of which will go as compensation to the victims. Judge Agrawal held that Vishnu’s alleged confession about his father’s death was inadmissible under Section 25 of the Evidence Act, though the discovery of the body was noted.
Defence lawyers Sagar Kolhe and Sanjay Gaikwad represented the brothers. The simultaneous convictions by the same judge in cases involving the same family have left the local legal fraternity stunned — a grim milestone in Thane’s judicial history.
