All the seven, including the son of a former SP who were found guilty of involvement in the attack on Burundi national Yannick Nihangaza, were on Thursday sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment by a Jalandhar court. The seven convicts hailing from well-connected families included the late SP Dharam Singh Uppal’s son Raman alias Romi Uppal; Sahildeep Singh, Amandeep Singh; Sumant Ralhan; Amarbir Singh(son of an MD of sugar cooperative mill); Harsh Gosain and Jaswant Singh. Two accused were still at large.
On April 24 last year, Yannick, 24 a first-year student of Computer Science at the Lovely Professional University (LPU), was attacked by some unidentified persons. The locals rushed the grievously wounded African to a Patiala hospital.
However, he is yet to recover from the coma and according to the doctors, 90 per cent of his brain has been damaged in the assault.