A court in eastern Assam’s Jorhat has convicted 25 people for lynching a 73-year-old doctor after more than a year. A senior medical officer Deben Duttaof Teok Tea Estate was killed on 31st August 2019.

A group of people had attacked and killed Dr Deben Dutta, the senior medical officer of a dispensary that is in Teok Tea Estate for allegedly delaying the treatment of a plantation worker named Somra Majhi. Dutta succumbed to the injuries on the way to the Jorhat Medical College and Hospital.

The police filed a charge-sheet against 32 people, however Jorhat district and sessions judge Robin Phukan acquitted only six whereas one person died during the trial. The punishment against the 25 convicted on 12th October would be announced on 19th October.

Sections that deal with murder, rioting, wrongful confinement, use of criminal force to prevent public servants on duty and illegal assembly of people with mutual objective has been slapped on the accused people. Applicable Sections of the Indian Penal Code were read along with The Assam Medicare Service Persons & Medicare Service Institutions Act, 2011.

The lynching had caused a sequence of protests and the Indian Medical Association had also threaten to withdraw doctors from tea estate hospitals if immediate action was not taken against the accused.

A four-member special investigation team, which was headed by Siva Prasad, Deputy Inspector-General of Eastern Range, had investigated and concluded the case in a “record” time of 21 days and had also filed a 602-page charge-sheet on 21st September 2019.

Source: The Hindu