Tanuja Sonavane, a 23-year-old freelance typist, was found stabbed to death in a most savage manner at her residence on April 28, 1999 along with the six-month foetus she was carrying in her womb.

A resident of irrigation department quarters along the Swargate canal, Tanuja was all by herself in her house when she was attacked. Her husband Dattatray, who works as a clerk in the irrigation department, had left for work as usual at 11 am on the fateful day.

On receiving a call around 4 pm that something was amiss at his place, Dattatray rushed home and found Tanuja lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen. He had lodged a complaint with the Swargate police on the same evening. The police suspected that the murder was committed by some robbers as Tanuja's mangalsutra was missing.

Though the investigations into the case were transferred to the crime branch, there was no breakthrough till Mukesh and Sanjay were arrested by a team led by Inspector Vinayak Jadhav and Sub Inspector Satish Govekar on July 9, 1998.

According to the prosecution, Mukesh and Sanjay who worked as ragpickers were wandering along the canal on April 28 afternoon spotted Tanuja standing outside her residence and approached her with the intention of the jewelry she wore. The prosecution also alleged that the duo stabbed Tanuja when she tried to raise an alarm and snatched her mangalsutra.

The prosecution had claimed recovery of Tanuja's stolen mangalsutra along with the razor used to stab her and some blood stain clothes from the duo. The medicos who performed a post mortem on Tanuja had testified in the court that the wounds which were found on Tanuja's body could not be delivered with the razor which the prosecution claimed was the murder weapon.

Assistant Public Prosecutor S Y Deshmukh appeared for the state while Sudhir Shah was the defence counsel during the trial.