TMC Leader and 10 Others Sentenced to Death by WB Court

KOLKATA: In an unprecedented verdict in West Bengal, a district court on Thursday pronounced capital punishment for 11 men, including a local Trinamool Congress leader, in Nadia district for opening fire on unarmed village women and killing a housewife.

Krishnagarh district court judge Partha Sarathi Mukherjee held TMC leader Lankeswar Ghosh and 10 men guilty and sentenced them to death for opening fire and hurling bombs on unarmed village women in an attempt to grab a large tract of agricultural land at Ghugragachhi village on November 23, 2014. Aparna Bag, a housewife who was among the women protestors, died on the spot.

Ghosh and a group of armed men went on a tractor and damaged the harvest on the land to forcibly grab it. A group of village women tried to protect the harvest and protested. The men hurled bombs and fired killing Bag. Three other women were injured. The judge held that the 11 men had criminally conspired, possessed illegal firearms and it was a rarest of the rare case as they fired on unarmed village women with an intention to kill, a heinous crime. One of the accused men is still absconding.