Mathura: The law seems to have finally caught up with 15 people in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura who torched a Dalit settlement 23 years ago, leading to a six-month-old infant girl being burnt to death.
A Mathura court Wednesday sentenced the 15 accused to life imprisonment for the crime and imposed a fine of Rs 73,000 on each of them. Nine other accused died during the trial which went on for over two decades.
The court of Additional District and Sessions judge (SC/ST Act) Manoj Kumar Mishra charged the culprits under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy a building) and 148 (rioting and assault with deadly weapon), as well as under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
The men sentenced have been identified as Nandu alias Nando, Jagdish, Lakshmi Narayan alias Lachho, Shyam Singh, Mohan Lal, Ramswaroop, Raman Singh, Karua, Jaipal, Tulli, Chhagan Lal, Chhidi Singh, Hari Narayan, Ramchandra, and Kamal Singh. All of them have been sent to jail.
Speaking to ThePrint, special public prosecutor Suresh Prasad Sharma said that on 23 January, 2001, the culprits and some other people, belonging to the upper castes, had started construction on a plot of land belonging to the panchayat in Datiya village of Mathura. This was opposed by some Dalits from a nearby settlement who started protesting.
The protest turned into a full-blown caste clash and the culprits opened indiscriminate fire upon the Dalits and torched their homes. One Rajendra Singh was shot in the thigh, while a six-month-old girl Gudiya was burnt alive in her hut, said Sharma.
Based on a complaint by a person from the community, Horilal, the police registered an FIR against 16 people and the investigation was handed over to the then circle officer of Sadar area. Later, the probe was transferred to the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department of Agra, where eight more accused were added in the FIR in the course of the investigation, Sharma told ThePrint.
He said the first chargesheet in the case was filed in court in December 2005 and the second in January 2006. The accused parties obtained a stay on the hearing from the Allahabad High Court but it was later vacated and the hearing was expedited in 2021. Arguments and evidence in the case were heard and presented by 25 January this year.
According to Sharma, 14 witnesses were presented in court during the trial — four police witnesses, a doctor who conducted Gudiya’s post-mortem, a doctor from Agra’s S.N. Medical College who treated Rajendra and eight other private witnesses. Two of the witnesses turned hostile in court and their testimonies were discredited.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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