Zeenews Bureau
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh: Four medical students who were convicted for ragging to death their junior Aman Kachroo, were sentenced to four years in jail each by a fast track court here Thursday.
Besides the four year prison term, Additional district and sessions judge Purinder Vaidya who had held the students guilty under sections 304 II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) and 34 (common intention) of IPC, also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on each of the accused.
Nineteen-year-old Aman, a fresher of Rajendra Prasad
Medical College and Hospital in Tanda, about 15 km from here
in Kangra district, succumbed to injuries on March 8, 2009,
after being allegedly ragged by final year students--Ajay
Verma, Naveen Verma, Abhinav Verma and Mukul Sharma.
Reacting to the judgement, Aman's father Rajendra
Kachroo termed it as a victory and said this is a message in
loud and clear terms to people who still indulge in ragging.
"I see this as a victory not only for me but for the
people who are fighting for judicial reforms, criminal reforms
and against ragging. I see it as a victory," he said.
Kachroo, however, voiced his disappointment in the court given the same sentence to all the four boys and wished that the court had given more punishment to the ring leader who pushed others into perpetrating the crime.
Senior public prosecutor Jiwan Lal Sharma had
contended that Aman was brutally beaten up under the garb of
ragging by his four seniors and had succumbed to his
injuries.
The court has recorded the statement of 38 witnesses,
comprising doctors, police personnel and Aman's father during
the trial.
Kachroo, appearing in court for the first time in the
case on August 28 this year, had said his son spoke to him in
detail about the incident of ragging that occurred in the
college.
"Aman even told me that he had given in writing a
complaint to college authorities regarding the (ragging)
incident... Three to four hours after I got the phone call
from Aman, somebody informed me on telephone from the college
that he had passed away," he had told the court.
The court had also re-examined two doctors - Harjeet
Pal Singh of the ENT department, and DP Swami, assistant
professor of forensic medicine department of the hospital -
who are related to this case.
On July 17, the fast track court had granted bail to
all four accused in the case, but later the Himachal Pradesh
High Court cancelled the bail of the accused.
With PTI inputs
First Published: Friday, November 12, 2010, 09:23