The Jharkhand High Court on Thursday converted the death penalty of two Maoists convicted for the 2013 ambush that killed Pakur Superintendent of Police Amarjit Balihar and five other policemen, sentencing them instead to life imprisonment.
Justice Gautam Kumar Choudhary commuted the sentences of Pravir Murmu and Santan Baskey while deciding their appeals against the 2018 judgment of a Dumka sessions court that had awarded them the death penalty.
The case had come before Justice Choudhary after a division bench delivered a split verdict on July 20. Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay had favoured acquittal citing insufficient evidence, while Justice Sanjay Prasad had upheld the death sentence. The matter was then assigned to Justice Choudhary for a final opinion.
After examining the record, Justice Choudhary held that the involvement of the two convicts stood proved, relying significantly on the testimony of injured policemen who witnessed the attack. The court noted that the ambush was a direct assault on the legal order but concluded that life imprisonment, rather than capital punishment, was appropriate.
The attack took place on July 2, 2013, when Maoist insurgents opened fire on two police vehicles near Pakur. Besides SP Balihar, the firing claimed the lives of Rajiv Kumar Sharma, Manoj Hembram, Chandan Kumar Thapa, Ashok Kumar Srivastava and Santosh Kumar Mandal. Two policemen — Lebenius Marandi and Dhanraj Maraiya — survived the assault.
