Mumbai, Aug 20 (PTI) A local court in Mumbai on Thursday awarded life imprisonment to nine persons for killing a man in 2015 following a heated argument over his pet dog.

Additional judge Kishore M Jaiswal held the accused guilty under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 120(b) (criminal conspiracy).

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The convicts are Sameer Chavan (21), Gautam Ghadge (25), Suraj Gawas (26), Sameer Kadam alias Chintya (26), Ravindra Wanare (22), Shaurabh Khopade (18), Vishal Parad (21), Sachin Hatpale (23) and Vishwadip Naik (25).

The victim, Anil Pandey, was killed in the wee hours of June 7, 2015 after the group stormed into his house in Bhandup area and hacked him to death using knives and swords in front of his family.

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As many as 25 witnesses, including the victim's wife, were examined during the trial, public prosecutor Iqbal Solkar said.

The victim's wife had told the court that her husband had gone towards a forest area near his house a day before the incident, where he had a tiff with the convicts when they were playing cricket.

Pandey's dog had caught hold of their cricket ball and refused to release it, which had led to an argument. A day after the incident, the group, armed with swords and knives, arrived at the victim's house and attacked him that led to his death, Solkar said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)