Life cut to 20 years — and two walk free of murder. ⚖️
📅 12 November 2026
The Bombay High Court has partly overturned the verdicts in the 2011 Keenan-Reuben murders. On Thursday 5 November, Justices M S Karnik and Sandesh Patil upheld the murder conviction of Jitendra Rana — but cut his life sentence to 20 years in jail, without remission.
Sunil Both and Deepak Piwal were acquitted of murder altogether: the court found no material to sustain the charge against them, though their convictions for causing simple hurt — and their one-year sentences — stand. The fourth convict, Satish Dulgaj, died while the appeals were pending.
The case goes back to 20 October 2011, when Keenan Santos, 24, and Reuben Fernandes, 29, were stabbed outside a restaurant in Mumbai's Amboli area after confronting men who were harassing their female friends. A special court convicted all four of murder in 2016 and sentenced them to life.
Fifteen years on — was cutting the life term to 20 years the right call? 👇