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‘Trial court lost its way in minor details’: HC cancels acquittal of 2 for murder
The Meghalaya high court ordered the authorities to immediately take the two men convicted for a February 2006 murder into custody
SHILLONG: The Meghalaya high court on Wednesday reversed a trial court’s acquittal of two men who were charged with killing a young college student in 2006, observing that the trial judge lost its way in the minor details and failed to see the larger picture which was obvious and virtually admitted.
“The respondents, Bernard Lyngdoh Phawa and Bonie Lyngdoh Phawa are found guilty and convicted under section 302 (murder) read with Section 201 (destruction of evidence) Indian Penal Code for the murder of Biplab Das and concealment of evidence thereafter. There was a common intention,” a bench of chief justice Sanjib Banerjee and justice Wanlura Diengdoh said, allowing the appeal filed by the state government against the trial court’s order of March 26, 2019.
The two men were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and three years in jail for destroying evidence. The sentences will run concurrently.
Biplab Das, a 21-year-old undergraduate mass communication student of St. Anthony’s College, Shillong, had gone missing on February 18, 2006. According to the prosecution, the two men, Bernard and Bonie, were arrested by the police in this connection and they led the police to the site where Biplab Das’s body was buried.
“It was a dastardly act that had been plotted out with the common intention of obtaining money from the victim – whether or not it was by way of extortion or by kidnapping for ransom – and the victim died a gruesome death as a result of the plan executed by the respondents. It is only just that the respondents face the appropriate consequence for their acts,” the high court said.
The high court faulted the trial judge for throwing out the confessional statement of the two suspects, underlining that none of the grounds cited to discard the statements hold any water.
In its appeal against the verdict, the Meghalaya government reasoned that the investigation in the case may not have been of the quality that it ought to have been, but the trial court missed the larger picture by finding minor mistakes in dates and the like, despite the individual statements of Bernard and Bonie unmistakably pointing to their guilt and the commission of murder.
