BHAWANIPATNA: Additional District and Sessions Judge of Dharamgarh Bandana Kar on Monday sentenced a man to undergo rigorous imprisonment of 10 years for his alleged involvement in chopping off the palms of two migrant labourers eight years ago.
The convict Parshuram Nayak (45) of Nuaguda in Kalahandi district was an associate of middlemen, who had cut off the right palms of the labourers as punishment for their trying to escape in December 2013. Nayak has also been ordered to pay a fine of Rs 15,000.
According to the prosecution, Nayak had assisted the middlemen in finding two migrant labourers - Deyalu Nial and Nilambar Dhangda Majhi - part of a 12-member team from Nuaguda and Pipalguda villages under Jaipatna police limits.
The middlemen had provided them Rs 10,000 each as advance to work in a brick factory at Raipur in Chhattisgarh. After arriving at Raipur when the middlemen sent them to Hyderabad from Raipur in a train, the labourers sensing trouble had de-boarded the train at different stations and returned home.
But Nial and Majhi were caught by the middlemen and their associates who followed them upon learning that they were heading towards their home. They were then taken to a forest near Sindhekella in the Balangir district.
Public Prosecutor Thabir Sahu said the middlemen and their associates first demanded a ransom of Rs 2 lakh each over the phone from the family members of the labourers. When the latter expressed their inability to meet the demand, they had chopped off the labourers' right hands from below the wrist.
"Altogether nine persons were involved in the gory incident that had grabbed national headlines. While eight middlemen and their associates were arrested, Nayak was absconding. The eight were sentenced to life in 2016 and Nayak was nabbed in the same year," Sahu said.
The other accused serving life imprisonment are Parbesh Dundi, Baikuntha Rout, Arjun Bhoi, Gangadhar Das, Bana Majhi, Jaisen Thela, Bimal Rout and Mantu Nial. The State government had paid a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the victims.
Unable to bear the agony and trauma, Majhi had died before the pronouncement of the judgement.