The court of additional session judge Amit Shekher in Seraikela-Kharswan district on Tuesday convicted ten persons in connection with the 2019 Tabrez Ansari lynching case.
The court will announce the quantum of punishment on July 5, public prosecutor Ashok Kumar Rai said. 11 out of the 13 persons accused in Tabrez Ansari mob-lynching case were held guilty by a Saraikela Court in Jharkhand. One of the accused, Kushal Mahali, had died during the course of trial, he said, adding two were acquitted for lack of evidence.
The convicted persons - Bhim Singh Munda, Kamal Mahato, Madan Nayak, Atul Mahali, Sumant Mahato, Vikram Mandal, Chamu Nayak, Prem Chand Mahali, Mahesh Mahali - were taken into custody soon after they were convicted by the court of Additional District Judge-I Amit Shekhar. The prime accused, Prakash Mandal alias Pappu Mandal, is already in judicial custody.
Out of the 13 people accused in the case, the court of additional session judge Amit Shekher on Tuesday held 10 of them guilty under section 304 of IPC, while the other two – Sumanto Mahto and Satyanarayan Nayak, were acquitted
Ansari, who was beaten up with rods over alleged theft, was lynched in Dhatkidih village under Seraikela police station on June 17, 2019.
Ansari, who worked as a labourer and welder in Pune, had come home to celebrate Eid when he was killed over suspicion of trying to steal a motorcycle.
The police had dropped murder charges against all the 13 accused in the mob lynching case and converted it into one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 of the IPC) on the basis of postmortem, medical and forensic reports which said 24-year-old Ansari died of cardiac arrest. The autopsy report, prepared earlier by the medical board in the case, suggested that the
stress-induced cardiac arrest was what killed Tabrez Ansari on June 22.
Notably, 24-year-old Ansari was thrashed for several hours after being tied to a pole and forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ on June 18, 2019, on suspicion of stealing a motorcycle with two other persons at Dhatkidih village in Seraikela-Kharsawan district when he and two of his associates allegedly tried to enter a house with the intention of committing theft.
The police reached the spot the next morning and took Ansari to jail on the basis of a complaint lodged by the villagers. When Ansari’s condition deteriorated in jail, he was taken to the Sadar Hospital in Seraikela-Kharsawan, where he was diagnosed with multiple injuries.
Later, he was referred to the Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur where he died on June 22.
