PTI
AGARTALA, APRIL 30
A local court today convicted 12 persons and sentenced them to life imprisonment in connection with the murder of opposition Congress MLA Parimal Saha, 33 years after the crime.
Additional District and Sessions Judge of West Tripura, S B Datta, convicted 12 of the 17 accused under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder) of IPC.
Five others were acquitted of all the charges.
The 12 convicted are Shasti Chakraborty, Uttam Saha, Mrinal Sengupta, Pradul Sengupta, Bijay Kumar Das, Kajal Roy, Abhoy Kanti Bhusan, Chinmoy Ghosh, Sukhendu Bikash Das, Babul Das, Sajal Kumar Sarkar and Hiranmoy Ghosh.
The five acquitted were Arun Kumar Saha, Chand Miah, Tapan Kumar Das, Satya Ranjan Das and Uttam Kumar Saha on account of lack of evidence.
Parimal Saha, then MLA of Charilam constituency, and his companion, Jiten Saha were murdered on April 7, 1983 at his office Tilla under Bishalgarh police station area, about 20 km from here.
Apart from the 17, seven others had also been named accused in the crime but while six of them died during trial, one is still absconding.
Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court Justice Deepak Gupta had called a meeting of judicial magistrates on pending cases last year during which 10 most important cases including the murder of Congress MLA Parimal Saha was found to have dragged for 33 years.
Justice Gupta had on July 1 last year slammed the inordinate delay in the over three-decades long murder case and issued notices to the Law Secretary and a host of other officials to furnish their replies in the next hearing on July 15 last.
Defence counsel Saradindu Chakraborty said he would file an appeal in the High Court against the verdict.
