Left MP gets 10 yrs for rape

BIR SINGH Mahato, a Forward Bloc MP from West Bengal?s Purulia district, has been sentenced to 10 years? rigorous imprisonment in a 24-year-old rape case.

BIR SINGH Mahato, a Forward Bloc MP from West Bengal’s Purulia district, has been sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment in a 24-year-old rape case.

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Additional sessions judge (Purulia) S.C. Chatterjee on Friday also sentenced Tipu Kamar, Dhansingh Murmu and Budhu Murmu, who, along with the MP, were found guilty of gang-raping a housewife at Baghmundi village in Purulia in 1982.

The Forward Bloc defended Mahato, saying the MP had been falsely implicated in the case. Party general secretary Debabrata Biswas alleged the landed gentry of Baghmundi had slapped a false case against Mahato who had been leading a farmers’ agitation in the region. He said they would apply for bail and appeal in the high court.