A local court in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to a Doda resident for having taken the help of terrorists in killing a village sarpanch 23 years ago. Irfan Ali, a resident of Kilhotran in Doda’s Gandoh tehsil, allegedly took the help of some associates affiliated with a militant outfit to kill Sher Mohammad, the sarpanch of Changa Gandoh, in July 2002 and eventually fled. He was booked for murder under the Ranbir Penal Code along with provisions of the Arms Act and was arrested on April 12, 2019. The police submitted a charge sheet in the case on May 28, 2019. The sentencing came after six years. While awarding life imprisonment, Bhaderwah Principal Sessions Judge Balbir L Jaswal observed that the crime had been committed in a “most brutal, barbaric and ghastly manner” and appeared to be “pre-planned and premeditated” since the convict, along with another accused, dragged the deceased out of his house and killed him in front of his sons. “The magnitude of violence inflicted on the deceased person, and even his quest to eliminate other family members is discernible from the evidence,” the judge observed. Pointing out that the crime has been perpetrated for the single reason of participating and winning the panchayat election, the judge observed that “such crimes are totally outrageous, anti-social and unacceptable in a society like ours having wide diversities and disparities on account of social, economic status and threaten the very existence of humanity”. “The collective conscience of the society is so shocked and it expects the holders of judicial powers to inflict exemplary and extreme penalties as such crimes are so outrageous that society insists on adequate punishment because the wrong doer deserves it irrespective of whether it is deterrent or not,” he added. The manner in which the crime has been committed against the deceased in front of his sons could have caused psychological impact on them and the eyewitnesses who were witnessing the crime, the judge said. “All that was done in a well thought-out and in a planned manner after making a preparation there for,” he observed, adding that this conduct of the convict places the facts of this case in the “abnormal and heinous category”.
