Kolkata: The Alipore Court on Friday awarded life imprisonment till death to prime accused Khora Badsha, alias Noor Islam Fakir, for the hooch tragedy at Sangrampur in December 2011.
As many as 172 people had died after consuming spurious liquor at Sangrampur, Usthi, Mogrhat and its adjoining areas and several others had fallen sick.
Sixth Additional District Judge (ADJ) of Alipore Civil and Criminal court, Parthasarathi Chakraborty, handed life imprisonment to Dukhe Laskar, Khairul Laskar and Nazrul, alias Kalo Laskar, in the case and all of them including Badsha were slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 each.
Khora Badsha was convicted under sections 273 (Sale of noxious food or drink ), 304(1) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of Indian Penal Code and also under section 326 ( voluntarily causing hurt by means of any poison or any corrosive substance) of IPC which entail a punishment of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.
The court had held the four responsible for the death of a number of people on Thursday and had acquitted six other accused persons, including Badsha's wife Shakila Bibi due to lack of evidence.
Senior advocate, Tamal Kanti Mukherjee, public prosecutor of City Sessions court in Kolkata was present as special Public prosecutor and was ably assisted by senior advocate Santanu Dutta.
It may be mentioned that two separate FIRs were lodged at Usthi and Mograhat Police stations and the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) took over the probe.
The quantum of punishment that was delivered on Friday is in connection with Usthi police station case in which 46 persons were declared dead and 12 were among the accused. Two of the accused are still absconding. The charge-sheet in the case was filed in February 2012.
It may be mentioned that the post-mortem conducted on the dead indicated that the cause was due to respiratory and cardiac failure. The victims as per doctors died of cardio-respiratory failure due to methyl poisoning.
The incident had triggered outrage among locals in the area who destroyed a number of hooch manufacturing units and even set fire to a number of such dens.
The state government had provided a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of those who died. The case filed at Mograhat police station is still at trial stage.