The Bombay High Court has split the 2016 verdict in the Keenan-Reuben murder case: key convict Jitendra Rana’s life sentence for the rest of his natural life becomes 20 years in jail, while two co-accused are acquitted of murder but remain convicted on their other charges.
Mumbai: A life sentence has been brought down to 20 years in jail for Jitendra Rana, the key convict in the 2011 murders of Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez in Mumbai’s Andheri, by the Bombay High Court on Thursday (November 5) [Jitendra Rana @ Chaina v. State of Maharashtra].
The Bench of Justice MS Karnik and Justice Sandesh Patil also acquitted co-convicts Sunil Omprakash and Deepak Ishwar of the murder charge. Their conviction on other charges, including molestation, was maintained. A detailed copy of the judgment is awaited.
What happened on October 20, 2011
The prosecution case, as accepted by the trial court, is that Keenan (24), Reuben (29) and five friends were leaving a restaurant in Andheri at about 10.30 pm on October 20, 2011. The accused made lewd comments at one of their female friends and touched her inappropriately. Keenan confronted them, and the men left, warning that they would return.
They came back within about 15 minutes, armed with knives taken from a coconut shop. In the altercation that followed, Keenan was stabbed several times in the stomach and died the same night. Reuben, who was also attacked, succumbed to his injuries on October 31, 2011. The killings of two young men who had stood up for a friend caused widespread public outrage in Mumbai.
The verdict under challenge
Three of the convicts had appealed against the 2016 verdict of a special women’s court. That court had found four accused guilty of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment for the remainder of their natural lives, and two of them were also convicted of molestation. Satish Nafeshing Dulgaj, the fourth convict, died while his appeal was pending.
What the ruling changes
At the appellate stage, one of Mumbai’s most closely followed cases of violence that began with the harassment of a woman in public has reached closure. A whole-life sentence has become a fixed 20-year term for the main accused, and the murder conviction of two others has been set aside, so the High Court has drawn a line between the roles of the accused. Its reasons will be known once the detailed judgment is released, and the State can then examine whether to challenge the ruling before the Supreme Court.
Case Title: Jitendra Rana @ Chaina v. State of Maharashtra
Bench: Justice MS Karnik and Justice Sandesh Patil, Bombay High Court
Date of Judgment: November 5, 2026 (detailed judgment awaited)
