Karbi Anglong mob lynching: Gauhati HC directs shift of trial to Nagaon

The Gauhati High Court on Tuesday ordered the shift to avoid any local influence.

A division bench of Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice Ajit Singh and Justice Manojit Bhuyan  havedirected the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Nagaon to begin the trial in the case in the fast track court.

The court has registered a suo-moto Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in connection with the lynching incident.

Earlier, the Assam Judicial department had proposed to shift the trial of the mob lynching case out from Karbi Anglong for free and fair judgement.

The department had submitted the proposal to the state Home department which then placed it before the High Court.

On June 8, two friends Nilotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath had gone to a picnic spot of Kangthilangso waterfalls under Dokmoka police station in Karbi Anglong.

When they were returning from the area, their black-coloured SUV was stopped at Panjuri Kachari by a group of irate villagers.

The villagers had stopped the SUV following rumours that two unknown young men had abducted a child and fled in a black car.

After stopping the car, the d dragged duo was out of the vehicle.

They were brutally beaten to death by the mob.

Following the incident, Karbi Anglong police had registered two cases (no – 33/2018 and 34/2018) under section 302, 341, 427, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 109, 332, 186 of IPC at Dokmoka police station and arrested 48 persons for their alleged involvement in connection with it.

The Assam police had also filed the chargesheet in the sensational Karbi Anglong mob lynching incident.

The chargesheet contained 844 pages of charges against the accused along with 104-page case diary and has as many as 71 witnesses including police personnel.

(By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati)