The CPI(M) today termed as "extremely unfortunate" the Bombay high court's decision to commute the death sentence awarded to six convicts in the Khairlanji case in Maharashtra to life imprisonment.
The CPI(M) today termed as "extremely unfortunate" the Bombay high court's decision to commute the death sentence awarded to six convicts in the Khairlanji case in Maharashtra to life imprisonment.
The party also said the court had not considered the state government and investigating agencies' "failure" to invoke the provisions of the Prevention of Atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Tribes Act against the convicts and others accused in the case.
"It is extremely unfortunate that the court has commuted the death sentence given by a lower court to the convicts," CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat told PTI.
"It is also a serious matter that the court did not look at the major flaw in the state government and the investigating agencies' failure to charge those guilty under the SCs/STs atrocities prevention Act," she said.
The court, Karat said, "should have indicted the government and the agencies for such a serious lapse and failure, for which several other accused got away. There was sufficient evidence to charge them under this Act also".
A mob had lynched a Dalit woman and her three children in Maharashtra's Khairlanji village on September 29, 2006 over
a land dispute with upper castes. The incident had provoked
violent protests across the state.
Six of the people accused of killing the children were given death sentence by a lower court in September, 2008. The Bombay high court today commuted the death sentence of six convicts to 25 years of imprisonment and fixed a similar period for two others serving life terms.
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