India, May 18 -- Nearly 38 years after a Mumbai gangster was hacked to death in Andheri, a sessions court has acquitted an accused who had remained absconding for decades, holding that the prosecution failed to conclusively establish his identity as one of the assailants and that the evidence on record was insufficient to sustain a conviction.

Additional sessions judge Satyanarayan R Navander acquitted Shamkumar Ramchandra Sharma in the 1988 murder case of Vilas Bhosale. Sharma had earlier been declared a proclaimed offender after allegedly absconding during the pendency of the trial.

The court record indicates that Sharma was never secured for trial thereafter and the proceedings against him eventually continued in absentia under provi...