On Tuesday, an Assam court granted death sentence to a tea garden worker and life imprisonment to 24 others who were in connection with lynching of a 73-year-old doctor, last year.

On 13th October, the District and Sessions Court in Jorhat had convicted the 25 people under various Sections of the IPC, including section 302. The prime accused in the case, Sanjay Rajowar, was given the death sentence. The relatives of the offenders said that they will challenge the lower court’s verdict in the Gauhati High Court.

The police had booked 32 people, out of them six were acquitted by the court earlier though one died during the course of the trial.

Dr. Deben Dutta was a senior medical officer of the Teok Tea Estate hospital in Jorhat district. He was lynched by a mob on 31st August last year for the delayed treatment of a worker, Somra Majhi. Dutta was then attacked with sharp weapons and on the way to the hospital, he succumbed to his injuries. Dutta had served at the tea garden for more than four decades.

His death triggered wide spread outrage and the Indian Medical Association (IMA) took a strong note of it and also sent a team to the state. The IMA demanded the trial of the case in a fast-track court and also for the safety of the lives and property of doctors.

Aparajita Dutta, the widow of the doctor, had welcomed the conviction of the 25 accused people. She had said earlier that she is happy over the court’s judgment. A court in Assam has never before convicted so many people in a single case.

Source: The New Indian Express