New Delhi: A Sessions Court in Bhagalpur on Saturday sentenced all the 14 convicts in the infamous Bhagalpur communal riots case of 1989 to life imprisonment.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Shambhunath Mishra, who had on June 18 held the 14 guilty of slaughtering 116 Muslims at Logain village on October 27, 1989, on Saturday handed down life term to all the convicts including one in absentia.
The court had deferred the pronouncement of the sentence on June 27 and directed the police to produce convict Jaiprakash Mandal, who was absconding. Mandal had escaped from the court soon after the judgement was pronounced.
Jaiprakash Mandal's brother Prabhas Mandal was among those sentenced, while their father Kamaleshwari Mandal, also an accused, had died during the trial.
Those convicted in the case included Ramchandra Singh, the then officer in-charge of Jagdishpur police station, chowkidar Thakur Paswan, Kuldip Mandal, Arjun Mandal, Prabhas Mandal, Sukhdev Mandal, Subhash Mandal, Ajablal Mandal, Shivlal Mandal, Naresh Mandal, Jattu Mandal, Ramdev Mandal, Saryu Prasad Singh and Jaiprakash Mandal.
There were twenty-four accused in the case, involving the slaughter of 116 people, including women and children. The victims were killed and their bodies dumped in a mass grave on which cauliflowers were planted to camouflage it.
Of the 24 accused, six died during the trial and four never turned up. They were declared proclaimed offenders and their properties attached.
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