Daijiworld Media Network – Guwahati

Guwahati, Apr 24: A district and sessions court in Assam’s Nagaon on Friday sentenced 20 persons to life imprisonment in the 2018 mob lynching of two Guwahati youths, Nilotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath, in Karbi Anglong district.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on each of the convicts. It had convicted them earlier this week while reserving the quantum of sentence for Friday.

Twenty-five other accused were acquitted due to lack of sufficient evidence.

The lynching of the two friends on suspicion of being child abductors had triggered outrage across the country.

Reacting to the verdict, family members of the victims said they had expected death penalty for some of the principal accused and were considering whether to challenge the sentence in the Gauhati High Court.

Abhijeet Nath’s father Ajit Kumar Nath said the family had sought capital punishment for some of the convicts, while Nilotpal’s father Gopal Chandra Das described his response as mixed, saying the brutality of the crime warranted harsher punishment.

The court reportedly held that the case did not fall under the “rarest of rare” category, a finding questioned by the victims’ families.

On June 8, 2018, Nilotpal, a sound engineer, and Abhijeet, an engineering dropout, had travelled to Kangthilangshu waterfalls in Karbi Anglong as part of an environmental sound recording trip.

While returning, they were attacked and beaten to death by a mob at Panjuri Kacharigaon village, around 200 km from Guwahati, after being suspected to be child lifters.

Police had arrested 48 persons in the case, three of whom were later found to be juveniles.