Panchkula, July 19 -- The Panchkula sessions court has sentenced a 65-year-old Dhakoli resident to rigorous life imprisonment for the murder of a property dealer in a planned hit-and-run near HMT, Pinjore, in 2020. The convict Sanjeev Kumar Arora has been directed to pay a fine of Rs.25,000 and serve an additional year of simple imprisonment in case of default. The court ordered that the period already spent in custody during the trial be set off. On September 27, 2020, property dealer Narinder Kumar Mittal was heading to his Pinjore shop on a scooty when Arora rammed his Brezza car into him on the Panchkula-Shimla highway, killing him on the spot. The prosecution established that the crime stemmed from a property dispute over a house in Saini Vihar, Baltana. Mittal's son, Sachin Jain, in his complaint, revealed that Arora and his son Deepak had been pressuring them to execute a sale deed in favour of a third party, but the family refused, leading to threats and eventual murder. Investigators recovered broken pieces of the accused's car number plate from the crime scene, and forensic examination confirmed they matched Arora's Brezza. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage further showed the accused's car crossing Chandimandir toll plaza minutes before and after the crime. A chain of evidence, including mechanical reports of the damaged car and scooty, FSL analysis of broken plastic pieces from the car grill, and the recovery of the vehicle from near the accused's residence, convinced the court of premeditated murder. Arora's counsel argued the case was a mere accident with no intent to kill, citing lack of eyewitnesses and contradictions in the prosecution case. However, sessions judge Ved Parkash Sirohi dismissed these claims, stating that the circumstantial evidence pointed unerringly to the accused's guilt. Arora had been pronounced guilty under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code on July 15....