Jharkhand lynching case: 11 sentenced to life imprisonment

A Jharkhand fast-track court has awarded life imprisonment to 11 people who were convicted in lynching of a 40-year-old meat trader Alimuddin Ansari. Ansari was lynched while he was carrying beef.

On 16 March, Judge Om Prakash convicted 11 of 12 accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), and 149 (unlawful assembly).

A mob had lynched Ansari in Bazaar Tand locality of Ramgarh town on June 29, 2017, on the suspicion that he was carrying beef in his car. Forensic tests had confirmed that he was carrying beef.

Phone call records had shown that one of the accused tracked Ansari for about two hours and informed others about the victims’s location before intercepting him on 29 June. The group of people also torched the vehicle of the victim.

This is the first case of lynching in which the accused were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The country witnessed a large number of lynching incidents by cow vigilantes and mob. The incident of lynching mostly happened in the BJP-ruled states – Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called those vigilantes anti-social elements and asked the government to take strict action against them.

The conviction and sentences came after about a year of the incident.  Among the convicts, a BJP leader and three members of Gau Raksha Samiti have also been found guilty. The prosecution demanded maximum punishment for the convicts but the defense counsel prayed for leniency on the ground that it was their first involvement in a criminal case.

Expressing satisfaction over the judgment, Ansari’s family members demanded compensation because Alimuddin was the sole bread-winner of the family.