BJP leader, 10 others get lifer in Jharkhand lynching case

A fast track court in Ramgarh on Wednesday sentenced 11 people, including a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, to life imprisonment for lynching a meat trader in June last year over the suspicion that he was carrying beef in his car.

Judge Om Prakash had found them guilty on March 16 under Indian Penal Code Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance) and 302 (murder).

The quantum of punishment was pronounced on Wednesday.

A group of people had lynched 40-year-old Alimuddin 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 later confirmed that the meat he was carrying was beef, the sale of which is banned in the state.

Additional Public Prosecutor S K Sukla said there were 12 accused and one of them was a minor.

The prosecution has moved the Juvenile Justice Board with a prayer that the minor be treated as an adult in the case, Sukla said.

The prosecution lawyer who had prayed for capital punishment describing the offence as the 'rarest of rare', later claimed that the punishment was the first in the country involving cow vigilantes.

Ansari's widow Mariyam Khatoon lodged a complaint against 17 people and a charge sheet was filed on September 17 against 12 people.

BJP district media in-charge Nityanand Mahto was among the 11 convicted persons.