A three-decade old political murder in West Bengal involving the death of a CPI(M) worker by 27 Congress activists ended in conviction of 19 people who were sentenced by the apex court on Friday to undergo 10 years in prison. For 14 of the accused, this judgement came as a harsh reality since they were out on bail. The Court gave them one week to surrender to serve the remaining period of sentence.
The apex court held that the guilt was completely established by the prosecution as the incident testified that the victim died due to fatal injuries inflicted using blunt weapons by a group of persons in Malda, West Bengal on July 5, 1983. However, the Court modified the charge of murder to that of culpable homicide that entitled them to a lesser sentence of 10 years each.
“Appellants caused injuries with deadly weapons, therefore, intention can be presumed regarding causing injuries as are likely to cause death, which falls under IPC Section 304 Part I (culpable homicide) and hence the conviction ordered by the trial court under IPC Section 302 IPC (murder) is converted to Section 304 part I. Consequently, appellants are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment of 10 years with a fine of Rs 5,000 each,” the bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said.
Interestingly, the murder of one CPI(M) worker occurred a day after CPI(M) workers massacred 13 persons of the village to which the Congress activists belonged.
It was a bigger crime, argued the counsel for appellants, but owing to then CPI(M) dispensation in the state, the trial with regard to 13 murders was kept hanging in Courts while that against the Congress workers was expedited.
The bench did not examine this argument as it went by the facts of the present case. As a measure to compensate the loss caused by the death, the Court directed 50 per cent of the money recovered from fine deposited by accused to be paid to the wife of the deceased.