Barely a week after a Kolkata Sessions Court awarded death sentence to three persons and life sentence to three others in the Kamduni gangrape-and-murder case, a Nadia district court on Thursday slapped death sentence on 11 people after finding them guilty of murdering a middle-aged woman in the district.
While one of the convicts lankeshwar Ghosh is a Trinamool Congress block president, the remaining 10 are workers of the ruling party, sources said.
The incident had taken on November 23, 2014 when the culprits attacked the victim’s house in order to grab her land which was being tilled by 55 families for decades. The land belongs to the Refugee Rehabilitation Department of the State Government.
When Aparna, a housewife, resisted their move, she was shot dead from point blank range. Three other persons two women and a child were also shot in the melee but they survived the attack.
The accused were subsequently charged under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), of the Indian Penal Code and Section 9B of Explosive Act and Section 27/35 of Arms Act.
The other convicts getting the death sentence are Palash Ghosh, Jhantu Ghosh, Gautam Ghosh, Shyamal Ghosh, Nepal Ghosh, Joydeb Ghosh, Rajkumar Ghosh, Basu Ghosh, Paresh Ghosh and Sanat Ghosh. Another accused Manabesh Ghosh is still at large.
Judge PS Mukhopadhyay compared the attackers with “terrorists” who had come prepared with arms and tractors for not only grabbing the victim’s property but also killing them and disposing their corpses off if resisted.