In 18 months, Patna HC frees almost all in 4 dalit killings
NEW DELHI:In the last one and a half years, all the major mass crimes against dalits adjudicated by the Patna high court have resulted in the acquittal of almost all the accused persons belonging to the outlawed Ranbir Sena. Significantly, the acquittals made by the HC involved the reversal of convictions awarded by trial courts in all the four cases booked under the prevention of atrocities Act.
Thus, the reversal of the conviction last week of all the 26 accused for the Lakshmanpur Bathe massacre fitted the pattern set by the HC in its three earlier verdicts. For the killing of 58 dalits in Lakshmanpur Bathe in 1997, the HC on October 9 gave the benefit of doubt to the outlawed Ranbir Sena cadres, although the trial court had sentenced16 of them to death and 10 to life.
This came on the heels of the July 3 HC verdict in another massacre allegedly carried out by Ranbir Sena in 2000 in Miyapur.In this case related to the murder of 32 dalits,the HC acquitted nine of the 10 people convicted by the trial court. It was satisfied with the prosecution’s evidence only against one person, Avinash Chandra Sharma. The trial court had awarded life sentence to all the 10 accused in 2007.
The HC’s Miyapur verdict was preceded by its acquittal on March1 of all the 11 accused for the 1998 Nagri Bazaar massacre.For the gunning down of 10dalitsin a Ranbir Sena operation, the trial court had imposed death penalty on three and life term on eight.
The HC judgment that set this trend in Bihar was the one concerning the 1996 Bathani Tola massacre of 21 dalits. On April17,2012,the HC acquitted 23 members of the Ranbir Sena on the ground of “defective evidence”. This despite the fact that the trial court had found the evidence against three of them to warrant death sentence while the remaining 20 were awarded life terms.
Social justice activists cite these four HC verdicts to buttress their long-standing demand to strengthen the special law that had been enacted in 1989 to combat caste atrocities. They find it disturbing that in each of the instances, the HC had overruled the justice rendered by the trial courts. But the impunity surrounding the attacks on dalits was not limited to Bihar.
Source: The Times of India
