Aurangabad: The Aurangabad sessions court on Monday convicted the two accused in the sensational case involving the kidnapping of a 10-year-old boy Vardhan Ghode for ransom of Rs5 crore and later murdering him.The incident took place in February 2017 in which the son of a city-based builder and his accomplice were arrested. During trial, a total of 41 witnesses were examined before the district and sessions judge VV Patil that led to the conviction of the accused duo on Tuesday.Following conviction, special public prosecutor Ajay Misar told TOI, “The duo has been convicted on the counts of murder, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and kidnapping. The court has set Tuesday as the date for announcing the sentence.”Along with Misar, lawyers Vijay Kale and Suresh Gaikwad were also pressed in by the victim’s family.The deceased — identified as Vardhan Vivek Ghode, a resident of Amrut Gurukunj Housing Society in Tilaknagar — was the son of a late builder from Thane.Following his father’s death Ghode’s mother along with his younger brother shifted to Aurangabad to stay with her father Yashwant Pujari, who is a retired RTO officer.One of the convict, Abhilash Sudhir Mohanpurkar (24), is the son of a city-based builder while his accomplice Sham Laxman Magre (21) hails from Nizambad and lived with the Mohanpurkars in Gurukunj Housing Society.On February 27, 2017, the duo kidnapped the boy and left a two-page letter at Ghode’s home with their ransom demand. The letter also threatened the family of dire consequences and warned them against approaching the police.The duo, on the pretext of taking the boy for a drive, took him to Khultabad. After the boy started resisting and crying for help, they smothered him to death. On their way back the accused duo, kept his body in the trunk of the car returned home. To avoid suspicion, the duo joined the manhunt for the boy and around the same time Mohanpurkar drew the family’s attention towards the ransom letter.After some of the residents grew suspicious about the manner in which the accused duo was behaving, the duo hurriedly fled in their car. Later, it came to fore that they had dumped the boy’s body in a nullah.The duo was arrested on February 28 by the Jawahar Nagar police station and the body was recovered. Taking cognizance of the incident, the then commissioner of police Amitesh Kumar moved an application to the court requesting for fast trial.

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