Odisha court acquits British charity worker

Three months after she was sentenced to one year’s simple imprisonment and asked to pay Rs 3 lakh fine by a trial court in Rayagada district on charges of causing the death of a tribal child due to negligence, an appellate court on Saturday acquitted Iranian-origin British charity worker Narges K Ashtari. The court ruled that charges against her were “trumped up”.

Rayagada Additional District and Sessions Judge Debadatta Das Mohapatra acquitted 28-year-old Ashtari holding that the trial court has transgressed the settled norm of criminal jurisprudence in misplacing the burden on Ashtari to prove her innocence. The judge also said that Ashtari is entitled to get compensation under Victim Compensation Scheme read with 357-A of the CrPC.

Ashtari, who ran an orphanage in Rayagada district, Prishan Foundation, had taken 30 children on a picnic near Nagabali river in November 2014. Six children were washed away in the river current of which five were rescued. Six-year-old Aseem Jilakara could never be traced and his father later lodged an FIR.