JHARKHAND COURT CONVICTS 10 IN TABREZ LYNCHING CASE
In a development of far-reaching importance, 11 out of the 13 persons accused in Tabrez Ansari mob-lynching case were held guilty by a Saraikela Court in Jharkhand on June 27. According to the prosecution lawyer Altaf Hussain – representing Tabrez Ansari’s wife Shahista Parveen – two of the accused persons were acquitted by Additional Session Judge Amit Shekhar as no evidence was found against them. The advocate said that the decision over the quantum of punishment will be taken on July 5. One of the accused persons – Kushal Mahli died during trial while the remaining 10 were sent to jail immediately after their conviction, he said.
The police had dropped murder charges against all the 13 accused in the mob lynching case and converted it into one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder on the basis of postmortem, medical and forensic reports which said 24-year-old Ansari died of cardiac arrest. The autopsy report, prepared earlier by the medical board in the case, suggested that the stress-induced cardiac arrest was what killed Tabrez Ansari on June 22.
Notably, 24-year-old Ansari was thrashed for several hours after being tied to a pole and forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ on June 18, 2019, on suspicion of stealing a motorcycle. The police reached the spot the next morning and took Ansari to jail on the basis of a complaint lodged by the villagers. When Ansari’s condition deteriorated in jail, he was taken to the Sadar Hospital in Seraikela-Kharsawan, where he was diagnosed with multiple injuries. Later, he was referred to the Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur where he died on June 22.
LIFE TERM FOR FORMER GUNUPUR MLA RAMAMURTHY GOMANGO
Former Gunupur MLA Ramamurthy Gomango was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 27 by the Special Judge Court Bhubaneswar in connection with the murder of his pregnant wife in 1995. The judgment came after 28 years of legal fight and police investigation. Besides, he was slapped with a Rs 50,000 fine failing which he will serve one year in prison.
Gunupur Assembly constituency comes under the Raygada district in southern Odisha. Gomango’s wife Sashirekha’s half-burnt dead body was found in the bathroom of his quarter in MLA colony in Bhubaneswar on September 28, 1995. However, police termed it an unnatural death and registered a case. Though he was arrested in the case, but was released on bail after two months. After public pressure mounted, police changed the course of the investigation and registered a case under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of IPC. Gomango was elected to the Assembly on the Janata Dal ticket in 1990. Later he was elected to the Assembly in 2000 on a BJP ticket. But he lost to the Congress in the 2004 poll.
MAJOR ACCUSED OF FORCING WORSHIPPERS TO CHANT ‘JAI SHRI RAM’
The counter-insurgency wing of the Indian Army has been sucked into allegations that soldiers led by a major stormed two mosques in Pulwama district in south Kashmir in the wee hours of June 24 and forced worshippers to chant “Jai Shri Ram”. Altaf Ahmad Bhat, the chairman of a civil society group in Zaddora village and who described himself as an eyewitness, reportedly said that senior army officers on June 25 apologised to the villagers and informed them that the major allegedly involved in the incident had been removed. The stated apology came after senior politicians in the Valley, who proceed with caution and restraint on matters associated with the army, blasted the military over the allegation and sought a probe into the alleged incident involving soldiers of the Rashtriya Rifles.