Man awarded death penalty for ‘waging war against country’ (West Bengal)

By PTI |Bongaon (wb) |Published: December 15, 2018 5:31:40 pm

In April 2007, BSF had apprehended four persons, including Samir, on suspicion of being members of a terror outfit and handed them over to the local police.

A district court on Saturday sentenced Sheikh Abdullah Nayeem alias Sk Samir, who had links with terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, to death for “waging war against the country”. Additional district sessions judge of Bongaon fast-track court, Binoy Kumar Pathak, passed the death sentence after finding Samir guilty of the charges against him. In April 2007, BSF had apprehended four persons, including Samir, on suspicion of being members of a terror outfit and handed them over to the local police. The West Bengal CID, which took over the probe, had charged them with waging war against the country and procuring arms and explosives, apart from other charges.

The three others — Mohd Younis, Sk Abdullah and Muzaffar Ahmed Rathore — had been sentenced to death in 2017 by the same court. Samir had escaped police custody in 2014 during transit when being taken to Mumbai in connection with the trial in a different case in Maharashtra. He was again arrested in 2017 by NIA from Delhi and was handed over to the West Bengal CID. The court, which declared Samir guilty on Tuesday, was scheduled to announce quantum of sentence on Saturday. Apart from the death sentence, the court also imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on Samir.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/man-awarded-death-penalty-for-waging-war-against-country-5495297/ (Accessed 25 December 2018)

Teacher sentenced to death for rape, murder of minor domestic help (West Bengal)

20th April 2018 06:23 PM

By Aishik Chanda

Express News Service

KOLKATA: A 39-year-old Biology teacher was awarded capital punishment on Thursday for raping and killing a minor domestic help at his residence in Tamluk in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal in 2012.

Pranab Roy being taken to court

Additional district and sessions judge Sanchita Sarkar awarded the punishment to Pranab Roy, a teacher of Chatra Kunjarani High School, for raping and killing a 13-year-old domestic help in his residence at Salgachia in Tamluk town on May 23, 2012. The judge found the accused guilty under Section 302 (murder), 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. The accused had claimed that the minor had committed suicide by consuming poison. However, traces of sexual assault and torture were found on the body of the minor during autopsy. Doctor Pradip Das, who conducted the autopsy, was assaulted and the parents of the minor were given rape and death threats.

Despite the threats, father of the victim, a daily wager, lodged an FIR at Tamluk police station nine days after the incident. According to the seriousness of the case, special government counsel Nabakumar Ghosh was appointed as lawyer of the victim’s family. Stating that the teacher who was responsible for strengthening the spine of the society and responsible for imparting values to the next generation, advocate Ghosh pled for capital punishment to the accused. On the other hand, the accused pled that he was victim of a political conspiracy. After the hearing, the judge pronounced capital punishment for the accused, who broke down on hearing the judgment, sources revealed. The accused pled that he is a heart patient and urged medical treatment which was granted.

Defense counsel Goutam Choudhary stated that he will appeal in Calcutta High Court against the judgment. Judge Sanchita Sarkar had earlier awarded death sentence to three of the nine accused of Kamduni rape, dubbed as ‘Bengal’s Nirbhaya case’, and the remaining life sentence.

Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2018/apr/20/west-bengal-teacher-sentenced-to-death-for-rape-murder-of-minor-domestic-help-1804167.html (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Ex-officer recounts jail horror (West Bengal)

By Pranab Mondal in Barrackpore

Published 4.04.18

Barrackpore: A retired army officer who has spent more than four years in jail after being branded a spy and charged with waging war against the state, returned home a free man on Monday night.

Madan Mohan Pal at his house in Barrackpore on Tuesday, Picture by Bishwarup Dutta. 

A Barrackpore court cleared Madan Mohan Pal of all charges earlier in the day. The police had booked Pal under several IPC sections, including 121 (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting the waging of war against the state), 121A (conspiring to commit certain offences against the state) and 132 (abetment of mutiny if mutiny is committed in consequence thereof). Had he been found guilty under sections 121 and 132, Pal might have been awarded death sentence or imprisoned for life.

Pal recalled to Metro his life in the armed forces and inside jail sitting on the verandah of his two-storey house in Barrackpore, from where he had been rounded up on December 12, 2013. "Look at my hand. It is the hand that saluted then President K.R. Narayanan in a Republic Day party at Rashtrapati Bhavan and governor Tribhuvana Narayana Singh at the Brigade Parade Ground. The police handcuffed the same hands. I served in the Indian Army for 26 years and retired as junior commissioned officer in 2008. After all these they accused me of waging war against the state," said Pal, a day after his release from Dum Dum Central jail.

"I was sitting on the veranda and talking to a tax consultant on December 12, 2013. The gate was open. A group of policemen entered my house, rummaged through almirahs... and asked me to accompany them. They took away my elder daughter's computer. She was pursuing BTech and all her study materials were stored in the computer. I begged to the policemen to return the computer as her exams were approaching. But they paid no heed to my pleas," Pal said. Pal said he had no clue from where the police learnt that he had passed on sensitive information to an ISI agent.

Recounting his experience in jail, Pal said he had been sold "as a slave" to another inmate for Rs 275. "It's a standard practice in the jail. A powerful inmate takes hold of new inmates and sells them to others. I was tortured and forced to do all odd jobs. I could bear it because of my army training," he said. Pal's wife, who wished not to be named, narrated the ordeal she had to face since her husband's arrest. "They stopped my husband's pension. Our daughters started giving tuition to support the family. People would insult them whenever they stepped out," she said. "I used to meet my husband in jail once a week. The visitors' room used to be packed with relatives and family members of inmates. There were 10 small windows with iron mesh and 20 inmates used to be on the other side. I had to struggle to reach close to the window to see his face. We could not hear each other's voices because of the commotion."

The CID, which conducted the probe against Pal, said they would soon challenge the Barrackpore court's order in the high court.

Source: https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/ex-officer-recounts-jail-horror/cid/1414194 (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Calcutta HC acquits 2 death row convicts in youth murder case (Kolkota)

PTI February 9, 2018

UPDATED: February 9, 2018 19:45 IST 

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court today acquitted two death row inmates and commuted the capital sentence of six others to jail terms in connection with the murder of a youth in North 24 Parganas district in 2014.

Rejecting the prosecutions plea to uphold the capital sentence, awarded by a trial court in 2016, a division bench comprising Justice Nadira Patherya and Justice D P Dey acquitted Suman Sarkar and Amal Barui. The bench also commuted the death sentence of Shyamal Karmakar to 30 years in prison and that of Ratan Samaddar, Tarak Das, Tapas Biswas, Somnath Sardar and Suman Das to life imprisonment. The court, however, upheld the lower courts decision to award five-year prison term of two others, who were found guilty of harbouring the eight accused in the case. 

A resident of Bamangachi in North 24 Parganas district, Sourav Chowdury (21), was abducted and murdered on July 5, 2014, after he protested against liquor consumption in public places. All 10 accused were arrested by the district police and tried before the Barasat Sessions Court in April 2016. The sessions court ordered death penalty for eight of them and five years imprisonment for the other two. The 10 convicts had moved appeals before the high court in 2016. Following extensive hearings in the case, the order was passed by the division bench today.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/calcutta-hc-acquits-2-death-row-convicts-in-youth-murder-case-1166192-2018-02-09 (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Family of Kashmiri on Death Row Hopes for Relief (West Bengal)

Amin Masoodi

Srinagar, India

2017-02-06

Relatives of an alleged militant from Indian Kashmir said Monday they would appeal a death sentence and verdict handed to him last month by a court in West Bengal state.

Muzaffar Ahmad Rather – a 27-year-old from Kulgam district in south Kashmir – was convicted on Jan. 21 along with Pakistani nationals Mohammad Abdullah and Mohammed Yunus on charges related to waging war against India as alleged members of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The three were arrested in 2007 while trying to enter India from Bangladesh. The accused had received weapons training in Pakistan and planned to carry out terror attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said.

But Rather’s family refuted police claims, saying authorities had falsely implicated him. “The verdict has shocked us. We are in the process of arranging funds so we can appeal the verdict in the High Court. We are hoping the High Court will not only overturn the verdict but also order his release,” Rather’s brother Mohammad Shafi, a daily wage laborer, told BenarNews.

“Even the police concede that they found no arms or ammunition on him. So how can they claim he was planning terror strikes?” he said. Rather went missing in 2002, his father Abdul Majid, also a laborer, said, adding they found out about his 2007 arrest through the media. Last month, Rather’s family saw him for the first time since he disappeared 14 years ago, when they visited him in prison. His relatives said they didn’t know what led to his disappearence when he was around 15 years old. “For nearly 10 years he has been locked up in prison and now they want to hang him. This isn’t right. I don’t believe that my son is a terrorist,” Majid told BenarNews.

Muzaffar Ahmad Rather is seen in an undated photograph taken before he went missing in 2002.

Appropriate punishment?

Rather’s defense counsel said their appeal against the verdict, which evoked protests across Kashmir, would likely come up for hearing later this month. “I argued desperately before the judge that the prosecution had failed to prove their charges against Rather and he should be released. But I was shocked that the court still handed him capital punishment,” Sabroata Basu, Rather’s lawyer, told BenarNews by phone from Kolkata. “The prosecution admitted in court that they did not find any incriminating material from the client and that charges of waging war were levelled on the basis of suspicion. I am quite confident the High Court will overturn the verdict and release him unconditionally,” Basu said.

The three accused were booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging, or attempting to wage war) and 122 (collecting arms with intention of waging war against the government of India), according to Nishad Pervej, West Bengal police’s deputy inspector general. “They are members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and were planning attacks on army camps in Jammu and Kashmir,” Pervej told a news conference. The Himalayan region of Kashmir, claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, has been in the midst of a separatist insurgency that has claimed over 70,000 lives since the late 1980s.

Militants killed

Over the weekend, two suspected militants were killed in a firefight that broke out when government forces intercepted a vehicle the suspects were riding in, police said. “We intercepted their vehicle near Sopore on the main highway. They lobbed grenades at the forces and were killed in retaliatory fire,” Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Hussain told Agence France-Presse. Two police officers, including member of a special anti-militancy group, were injured in Saturday’s incident, Hussain said.

Following a shutdown call by separatists in response to the verdict in Rather’s case, several thousand anti-India protesters took to the streets to accuse the Indian government of falsely implicating Kashmiri youths in criminal cases. “The verdict is against the internationally accepted norms of justice,” senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told BenarNews. “It is unfortunate that the Indian judiciary has once against demonstrated miscarriage of justice. We reiterate our demand of the unconditional release of Muzaffar Ahmad Rather and all political prisoners languishing in Indian prisons,” Farooq said.

Source: https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/bengali/death-row-02062017123733.html (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Kolkata college student murder: Eight persons awarded death sentence

Apr 19, 2016, 12:48 PM IST

A Kolkata court on Tuesday pronounced death sentence for eight persons in connection with the murder of a college student.

According to ANI report, the quantum of punishment was pronounced today in the murder of Sourav Chowdhury whose body was recovered near the railway line on July 5, 2014 at Bamungachi in North 24 Parganas district. One of the 13 accused in the case was acquitted for want of evidence while 12 others were convicted. Sourav Chowdhury, a student activist from Bengal, was killed on July 5 for allegedly protesting against liquor and drug dens in his locality of Bamungachi, 30 kilometres away from Kolkata.

Sourav had reportedly protested against hooch dens in his neighbourhood that were allegedly run by one Shyamal Karmakar. His protests reportedly forced many liquor dens in the area to shut shop. However, the 21-year-old student's body was found on the morning of July 5 in 2014, hacked to pieces, on the railway tracks near his village. His family alleges that he was called out of his house by a group of people led by Shyamal Karmakar. Shyamal Karmakar, the main accused, was arrested from Rampurhat in Birbhum district. Days later, police also arrested another local criminal Anup Talukdar in connection with the case.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/west-bengal/kolkata-college-student-murder-eight-persons-awarded-death-sentence_1877703.html (Accessed 20 December 2018)