12 get 4-year jail for attacking cops who tried to save victims
JAMSHEDPUR: A fast-track court in Jharkhand’s Saraikela has sentenced 12 people to four years’ rigorous imprisonment for obstructing and attacking a police team trying to save four men they allegedly lynched in the district in May 2017.
Additional district and sessions judge Ashish Saxena sentenced Krishna Sahu, Bhagirath Jyotishi, Kunda Jyotishi, Falguni Jyotishi, Tarun Jyotishi, Arun Jyotishi, Krishna Jyotishi, Kanhu Jyotishi, Chaturbhuj Sahu, Sitaram Sahu, Bara Kanhu Jyotishi and Laltu Lohar.
The judge slapped a ~2,000 fine each on the convicts held guilty of “obstructing and assaulting government officials on duty, attacking with deadly weapons, trespassing into other’s house, disturbing law and order, breaking public peace’’ in Saraikela.
Three other accused — Laxmi Kant Behra, Agasti Sahu and Pankaj Kumar Nag — were acquitted for want of evidence.
The state government had handed over the case to the fasttrack court for speedy trial given the nature of the crime.
The convicts were part of a mob that first lynched Haleem and Nayeem in Saraikela’s Shobhapur before killing Sajjad and Siraj Khan in Padnamsai, around 20 km away, in Sariakela-kharsawan district over rumours of child lifters in the area on May 18, 2017. It attacked the house of a man identified as Murtaza Ansari where the four had taken refuge, as well as the police party that had rushed to save them. A police vehicle was also torched.
A probe by Kolhan commissioner Pradeep Kumar and deputy inspector general Prabhat Kumar had found that the four dead men were suspected to be involved in illegal cattle smuggling and did not stop their car when villagers, panicked by child lifting rumours, asked them to stop. The probe found this led to the lynchings.
Deputy inspector general of police (Kolhan) Kuldeep Dwivedi praised the job done by Chandan SP Sinha’s Saraikela-kharsawan team in producing enough evidence to help the court convict the 12. “The case related to lynching deaths is under progress in Saraikela court and we are confident of the conviction in that as well. We will consider rewarding the police probe team once we get the court order,” he said.
The conviction of the 12 came a day before the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a new anti-lynching law and put the onus on the Centre and states to curb “mobocracy”. A fast-track court in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district had in March sentenced 11 cow vigilantes to life imprisonment in a record six months for lynching a trader, Alimuddin. The Jharkhand HC last month granted bail to eight of the convicts. DEHRADUN: A 12-year-old boy, one of the five minors accused of gang-raping an eight-year-old girl in Uttarakhand, had earlier molested a one-year-old girl in the village, the police said on Tuesday. The plan to rape the minor was also allegedly hatched by the same 12-year-old, they said.
The boys, aged between 9 and 14, had allegedly gang-raped the eight-year-old girl on July 12 when her parents were not at home in Sahaspur, around 25 km from Dehradun. They had watched pornography on a mobile phone two days before committing the crime.
“During investigations, it was found that the plan to rape the girl was hatched by one of the accused aged 12. The plan was backed by the 14-year-old followed by the remaining three — aged 9, 10, and 12,” station house officer, Sahaspur, Narendra Rathore, said quoting the eldest accused.
“The eldest accused told the police that few months ago, the 12-year-old mastermind of the gang rape had molested a oneyear-old girl in the village. However, the claim couldn’t be verified as nobody came forward to inform police about the incident,” the SHO said.
The police official said that a medical examination of the girl has confirmed the gang rape. “The victim was taken to Doon Hospital (Female) for medical examination. The reports mention injuries to her private parts and confirmed the gang rape. Earlier on Sunday, the five accused, in their statement before the court, had confessed to the crime,” the SHO added.
The condition of the girl is stable. The girl’s mother has claimed that the “youngest accused used to harass and even molested my daughter once in the school” where they were in the same class. On Sunday, a juvenile court sent the accused to a juvenile correctional facility.