India, Dec. 25 -- The Dindoshi sessions court has convicted a 30-year-old scrap dealer for causing the death of two women and two children, in a gas-leak induced fire in a slum pocket in Kandivali in 2013. Additional sessions judge Nandkishor More held the scrap dealer, Bablu Paswan, guilty of criminal negligence, and sentenced him to one year's rigorous imprisonment, though the prosecution had sought his conviction for the stringent charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

According to the prosecution, Paswan used to empty cylinders containing inflammable gas into an open drainage line in front of his scrap shop near the Friends Shejar Committee Chawl in Kandivali West, and continued doing so despite warnings from local resi...