GUWAHATI: An Assam court on Tuesday awarded death sentence to a tea garden worker and life imprisonment to 24 others in connection with last year’s lynching of a 73-year-old doctor.
The District and Sessions Court in Jorhat had on October 13 convicted the 25 people under various Sections of the IPC, including 302.
The prime accused in the case, Sanjay Rajowar, was awarded the death sentence. The families of the convicts said they would challenge the lower court’s verdict in the Gauhati High Court.
The police had booked 32 people. Six of them were acquitted by the court earlier while another died during the course of the trial of the case.
Dr. Deben Dutta, a senior medical officer of the Teok Tea Estate hospital in Jorhat district, was lynched by a mob on August 31 last year for his alleged delay in treating a worker, Somra Majhi. Dutta was attacked with sharp weapons and he succumbed to his injuries on the way to a hospital. He had served at the tea garden for over four decades.
His killing had triggered widespread outrage. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) had also taken a strong note of it and sent a team to the state. The IMA had demanded the trial of the case in a fast-track court and safety and security to the lives and property of doctors.
Aparajita Dutta, the widow of the doctor, had earlier welcomed the conviction of the 25 accused.
“I am happy over the court’s judgment. Never before a court in Assam convicted so many people in one case,” she had said.