Kolkata: A Judicial Magistrate court in Alipore on Monday awarded life imprisonment to former Trinamool Congress councillor Sambhunath Kow in the murder of Adhir Maiti — a member of TMC's ward 58 committee in March 2013. Ninth additional judicial magistrate of Alipore Sujoy Sengupta also pronounced life imprisonment for six others accused in the case.
The Court on Thursday had convicted all of them of murder. It was on March 23, 2013 when two rival groups of TMC supporters clashed over the possession of a piece of land near Dhapa off Eastern Metropolitan Bypass that had resulted in the death of Maity and councillor of the ward Kow was charged with his murder.
The Court on Monday also slapped a fine of Rs 5000 each on all the seven accused including Kow.
Arindam Das, counsel for Kow said he will move to Calcutta High Court challenging the verdict. "The death of Maiti was natural and there was no foul play in it. The victim had suffered a heart attack and the autopsy report corroborates it. There is no logic behind the prosecution slapping murder charges under section 302 against my client. Police could have slapped section 304 culpable homicide not amounting to murder against him," Das said. It may be mentioned that the sleuths had slapped a case of murder against as many as 10 accused in this case. Eight persons including Kow were held while two others Niku Roy and Jyoti Roy are still absconding. Kow was expelled from the party soon after allegations of murder surfaced against him.
He had been on the run since the incident and had fled away to Odisha and Jharkhand to find a shelter. He was finally arrested by the detective department of Kolkata Police from Balia district in Uttar Pradesh in April 2013. Police had slapped murder charges against Kow in 2014 and slapped sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC against him. One of the accused Debasish Sarkar who was accused under section 212 of IPC for providing shelter to the accused was acquitted on Thursday.