Mumbai, May 5: Four hoodlums who had murdered two young men in Mumbai five years ago for thwarting their attempts to molest three women were sentenced to life terms today.

Keenan Santos, 24, and Reuben Fernandes, 29, had been beaten with rods and stabbed repeatedly on a busy road on October 20, 2011, as 50-odd bystanders looked on.

Jitendra Rana, Sunil Bodh, Satish Dulhaj and Dipak Tival "will be in jail till death", judge Vrushali Joshi of the special women's court ruled.

"I'm happy. They should live every moment thinking about Keenan and Reuben," said Keenan's father Valerian Santos, who had fought a long court battle.

But some of his frustration seeped through as he said: "It takes nearly five years to get justice for a boy who has done something good in society; we have to beg for justice...."

A PTI report said special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam thanked the women involved, acknowledging that their testimony "bolstered our case and their deposition was very detailed".

Keenan and childhood friend Reuben had gone to a restaurant with seven others, including three women, in the neighbourhood where they had lived all their lives.

Amboli is an old and affluent locality in suburban Andheri where Sashadhar Mukherjee had built Filmalaya Studio, which went on to become a Bollywood landmark. The restaurant Keenan and friends were dining at was a stone's throw from Filmalaya.

Among the nine were Keenan's 20-year-old fiancée and Reuben's brother Benjamin, 27. The friends got into an argument with a band of hooligans, their fellow diners, who had passed lewd comments at the women in the group.

When some of the men tried to molest the women, Keenan and Reuben slapped them and the gang left threatening revenge.

A little later, as the friends were buying paan from a stall near the restaurant, the thugs returned in a larger group of 17 and straightaway attacked Keenan and Reuben.

"They had come with iron rods, knives and bamboo poles. They went straight for Keenan and stabbed him. As Reuben rushed forward, they began hitting him with a rod till he fell down," Keenan's friend Avinash Solanki recalled.

"Benjamin and I rushed to help but they rained blows on us with rods, and I fell. Then I saw Keenan reel and fall on his back. One of the guys - Jitendra Rana - stamped on him, kneeled on his chest, looked him briefly in the eye and stabbed at his heart with all his might."

Keenan died on the spot and Reuben succumbed to his head and internal injuries 10 days later.

A waiter at the restaurant, Mohsin Khan, 23, had rushed to the aid of Keenan and his friends and got injured. The restaurant later sacked him for getting involved. The entire neighbourhood then boycotted the restaurant, forcing it to shut shop.

Valerian Santos told reporters outside the court that the justice system "should be speeded up". He recalled how the Chief Justice of India had broken down recently while talking of the shortage of judges and the huge backlog of cases.

Santos said he would continue fighting for justice till the end. "I know they (the convicts) will appeal to the higher court, which is their right - we have nothing to say about that," he said.

"Let them go to the higher court; let them go to the highest court and even if they go in front of God, I shall stand in front of God and appeal and ask for justice for my son. I will keep the fight going."