20 get life over Assam lynching of duo mistaken for child-lifters

GUWAHATI: A Nagaon court on Friday sentenced 20 convicts to life imprisonment in the 2018 lynching of two youths from Guwahati in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district.

Nagaon district sessions judge DJ Mahanta had on Monday convicted 20 of the 45 accused under various provisions of the IPC, including murder by members of an unlawful assembly, rioting, obstructing a public servant from performing official duty, and voluntarily causing hurt. The court acquitted 25 others, citing failure by the prosecution to prove the offences against them.

Counsel for the convicts, Manas Sarania, said, “The court has awarded life imprisonment to the convicts and imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 each. We will challenge the verdict in the Gauhati High Court. The case does not have any ingredients to convict under the murder charge. They should have been convicted only under the ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ charge under the IPC as they had no intention to kill.”

Special public prosecutor Z Kamar said, “To be honest, I am not satisfied with the verdict because, in my opinion, it was the rarest of rare cases. But the court said it was not a rarest of rare case and awarded life sentences.”

Kamar added, “I’ll write to the state govt legal cell. Thereafter, the legal cell will issue instructions to a public prosecutor after scrutinising everything.”

Police had arrested 48 people in connection with the case. Three accused were minors and are lodged in the Jorhat Juvenile Home.

The verdict came seven years and 10 months after sound engineer Nilotpal Das (29) and businessman Abhijeet Nath (31) were lynched by a mob on June 8, 2018, at Kangthilangso under Dokmoka police station in Karbi Anglong, after being suspected of being child lifters.

Das and Nath had visited the Kangthilangso picnic spot and were stopped on their return at Panjuri, where villagers pulled them out of their vehicle and assaulted them. A video circulated on social media showed the two pleading that they were not child lifters and were visiting Karbi Anglong. Police took them to a hospital, but both died on the way.

The first hearing was held in Diphu court on Nov 8, 2018, before the Gauhati HC shifted the case to the district and sessions judges’ court in Nagaon.
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