Kolkata: Calcutta high court has reversed a trial court order of death sentence to the three accused persons, acquitting one and handing two others life imprisonment in a case of gangrape and subsequent murder to a 20-year-old girl at Kamduni village in North 24 Parganas in 2013, court sources said on Saturday.
On June 7, 2013, the girl, a 2nd year undergraduate student was returning home from college when she was abducted, gang raped and brutally lynched.
The double bench consisting of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta on Friday set aside the capital punishment to Saiful Ali and Ansar Ali and awarded life sentence and acquitted Amin Ali, who was also convicted by the lower court owing to absence of proper evidence.
Advocate Phiroze Edulji, who represented the accused persons, said there was lack of evidence and therefore the acquittal of Amin Ali.
“I am of the opinion the trial court erred in awarding the death penalty with reference to the gravity of the offence alone. State has
failed to prove conspiracy and prior concert in the crime beyond reasonable doubt. It has also not led evidence to rebut the possibility of reformation and rehabilitation.” said the judges while pronouncing the order.
“On the other hand, conduct of the appellants in the correctional home is satisfactory and other unrebutted materials before this court gives rise to a reasonable belief that there is high possibility of reformation and rehabilitation of the appellants. Alternative punishment of life imprisonment for the remainder of natural life is a more humane substitute that adequately addresses societal concerns of recidivism, ” the sources quoting the division bench as saying.
Altogether, nine accused persons were named in the charge sheet by the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police after the brutal gangrape rape and lynching of the girl while the victim was returning home from college in the afternoon at her Kamduni village in N 24 Parganas on June, 7, 2013.
While one one of the accused persons died, two others were acquitted in 2016 in the Bankshall Court in the city. Originally the trial was happening in the Barasat court in North 24 Parganas.
Calcutta High Court on Friday reversed the Bankshall court order of death sentence to the three accused persons, acquitting one and handed two others for life imprisonment in a gang rape and murder to a 20-year-old girl at Kamduni in North 24 Parganas in 2013, court sources said.
The other three convicts, – Imanul Islam, Aminul Islam ad Bholanath Naskar, who were earlier sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court, were set free on Friday by the division bench as they have already completed ten years behind the jail since the time the investigationprocess started in the matter.
The double bench judges said that the three have already passed over 10 years since their arrest and their conviction entails a maximum of seven years imprisonment. They ordered the trio will be get freedom on payment of Rs 10,000 as fine each, in default of which they will undergo simple imprisonment for three more months.
The victim’s family members who were present in the High Court during the pronouncement of the verdict broke down on the floor of the court premises and vowed to move to the Supreme court.
