One of India's most notorious serial murder cases, the Joshi-Abhyankar murders claimed several lives between January 1976 and March 1977. Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Sutar, Shantaram Jagtap and Munawwar Shah were convicted and sentenced to death. After the Supreme Court rejected their appeals, all four were executed at Yerawada Central Jail on November 27, 1983.
Former Army Chief General Arun Kumar Vaidya was assassinated by Khalistan Commando Force militants Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha. A special court sentenced both accused to death, and the Bombay High Court as well as the Supreme Court upheld the verdict. They were later executed at Yerawada Central Jail.
On January 25, 2012, Santosh Mane hijacked an MSRTC bus from Swargate depot and drove it recklessly across Pune, killing nine people and injuring 37 others.
The sessions court awarded him the death penalty, calling the act deliberate and premeditated, and the Bombay High Court upheld the verdict. However, the Supreme Court later commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment.
Software engineer Nayana Pujari was abducted from Kharadi on October 7, 2009, while waiting for her company transport. She was gang-raped, murdered and her body was dumped in a forest near Jarewadi in Khed taluka.
The trial court sentenced Yogesh Raut, Mahesh Thakur and Vishwas Kadam to death. The confirmation of the death sentence is currently pending before the Bombay High Court.
In February 2021, a minor girl from the Katkari tribal community was raped and murdered near Kuran Khurd village close to Panshet Dam in Velhe taluka. Fast-track court sentenced Sanjay Baban Katkar to death, ordering that he be hanged till death. The verdict was delivered within a year of the crime, making it one of the fastest such trials in the district.
The latest addition to Pune's list of capital punishment cases is the Nasrapur rape and murder case involving a three-and-a-half-year-old girl. A special court sentenced convict Bhimrao Kamble to death, describing the offence as falling under the 'rarest of rare' category.
