Ludhiana: A local court has sentenced two persons to ten-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) each in an attempt-to-murder case.
The court of additional sessions judge Harbans Singh Lekhi also imposed a fine of Rs 17,000 on the convicts — Ram Tirath and Beant Singh — and in default of payment of fine, they will have to undergo rigorous imprisonment for thirteen months each.Gurmukh Singh and Jagga Singh were declared proclaimed offenders.Two others, Harpreet Singh and Jasveer Singh, were already convicted and sentenced by the court before this.
On Jan 20, 2013, Hathur police booked Harpreet Singh, Jasveer, Gurmukh, all from Chakar village in Punjab’s Ludhiana district, and Ram Tirath, Beant and Jagga from Minian village in Moga district under sections 307 (Attempt to murder), 452 (House Trespass), 324 (Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 323 (Voluntarily causing hurt), 148 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the IPC and sections of Arms Act.
Later, Section 326 of the IPC (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) was added in the case. Prosecution said Avtar Singh Tari, a car mechanic, told the police that on Jan 25, 2013 evening, he was standing in front of Dharamshala Hathur Road with his uncle Gurdev Singh and son Avtar Singh Gora. At 6.30 pm, a car and a motorcycle came from Chakar village. Six people identified as Gurmukh, Gola of same village, Ramu of Minian, Billu of Chakar, Beant Singh and another person, alighted and beat him up.
Ramu opened fire “with an intention to kill him.” The bullet hit him on his right side and he fell down, after which they attacked him with a kirpan and another weapon.
Gurdev and Gora ran towards their house. The accused then chased them on their car and motorcycle.
Later, he came to know that his uncle hid himself in the kitchen and the accused, armed with weapons, entered his house and after dragging them out of the kitchen “beat him up and caused him injuries”. The motive of the occurrence was: Gurmukh and his cousin, along with his friends, were playing deck on high volume and the complainant and his uncle had been preventing them from doing so, Avtar told police. Later, police arrested the accused and filed a chargesheet. During trial of the case, the accused pleaded falseimplication. The counsel for the accused, Ram Tirath and Beant Singh, argued that prosecution witnesses Avtar, Gurdev and Gora were “closely related” to each other and are, thus, interested witnesses and no independent witness was joined.
“Therefore, their testimonies cannot be relied upon.” The court repelled the argument of the counsel for accused and held that their testimonies cannot be disbelieved on the ground that they are closely related to each other.
“So the same has to be relied upon without any independent corroboration,” the court said. The court observed that from the testimony ofprosecution witnesses Avtar, Gurdev and Gora, it is amply proved on record that the motive of the occurrence was that accused Gurmukh, along with his above friends, were playing deck on high volume and “Avtar and Gurdev had been preventing them from doing so and due to this grudge, they in prosecution of common object suffered injuries”.