This story is from May 22, 2021

1999 Senari massacre: Patna high court acquits 11 on death row

In two separate judgments, the Patna high court on Friday acquitted 14 people convicted in the 21-year-old infamous Senari massacre citing "poor and contradictory evidence" against them.
1999 Senari massacre: Patna high court acquits 11 on death row
The high court observed that the accused were subjected to seven standard and identical questions by the trial court even though the witnesses against them are disparate.
PATNA: In two separate judgments, the Patna high court on Friday acquitted 14 people convicted in the 21-year-old infamous Senari massacre citing "poor and contradictory evidence" against them.
Setting aside the lower court's verdict, the HC observed that the incident took place on a dark Amavasya night. There was no evidence to show that the extremists used big torches and neither did the police seize any other source of light to establish the deposition of prosecution witnesses, who identified the convicts.
Altogether 34 upper caste men were allegedly dragged out of their homes by the armed members of the now-defunct Maoist group MCC.
They were taken to Thakurbari of Senari village under Karpi police station in the Jehanabad district (now in Arwal) on the night of March 18, 1999, by the alleged attackers in police uniform.
According to the police reports, they were lined up with their hands and legs tied after which their throats and abdomen were slit open with sharp weapons one after another.
After nearly 17 years, a trial court of ADJ-III in Jehanabad had held 16 accused guilty and sentenced 11 of them to the death penalty and life imprisonment to the rest three in two separate judgments delivered on November 15 and November 18, 2016.
Two convicts are still evading arrest. Charges were framed against 45 accused but 38 faced trial.
None of the convicts namely Dukhan Ram Kahar, Bachesh Kumar Singh, Budhan Yadav, Gopal Sao, Butai Yadav, Satyendra Das, Lalan Pasi, Dwarik Paswan, Kariman Paswan, Gorai Paswan, Uma Paswan, sentenced to the death penalty and Mungeshwar Yadav, Vinay Paswan and Arvind Paswan sentenced life imprisonment, were named in the FIR.

The division bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh and Justice Arvind Srivastava, while allowing the criminal appeals of the convicts challenging the judgment and the sentencing of the lower court on Friday, observed that the conviction in a criminal trial is required to be certain and not doubtful.
“The burden of proof of guilt of an accused is upon the prosecution. It must stand by itself. In the present case, on appreciation of evidence adduced during the trial, I find that there is real and reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the persons,” the judgment dictated by Justice Singh and agreed by Justice Srivastava read.
The high court also found that there is nothing on record that one of the death convicts, Dukhan Ram Kahar, whose conviction was based on court dock identification by prosecution witnesses after 15 years of the incident, was known to them before the incident.
The high court observed that the accused were subjected to seven standard and identical questions by the trial court even though the witnesses against them are disparate.
“While some accused have been identified by some witnesses, the others have been identified by a single witness. No question was put to them regarding identification by different persons and the places in the village in which they were claimed to be identified,” the court observed.
The bench relied on the ratio laid down by the Supreme Court in four different cases to observe that material not provided to the accused persons can’t be taken into consideration for convicting them.
Senior counsels Krishna Prasad Singh, Surendra Singh, Ansul and Sanjay Kumar appeared for the appellant convicts, Surya Nilambari was appointed amicus curiae while additional advocate general Yogendra Prasad Sinha and other APPs appeared for the state government.
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