Date:08/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/08/stories/2007070854240100.htm

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Bhagalpur case convicts get life

K. Balachand

PATNA: The Bhagalpur fast track court on Saturday awarded rigorous life imprisonment to all 14 persons convicted about three weeks ago for massacring 116 people of the minority community in Logai village during the 1989 riots that claimed more than 1000 lives.

Additional District and Sessions Judge S.N. Mishra handed down the life term to all the convicts emphasising that he did not consider it the rarest of rare criminal cases. The judgment covered even the convict who escaped from the court room on June 18 when the verdict was pronounced.

The court deferred its decision on the quantum of punishment on June 27 hoping that the police would bring to court the absent convict, Jai Prakash Mandal.

The police, however, failed to produce him and the judge pronounced the sentence in absentia stressing that it happened to be the minimum punishment in the case.