District and session court on Wednesday sentenced 48 persons to seven years of imprisonment in the 20-year-old rioting case in Satna.
Satna district and session judge Ajeet Kumar Tirki on Wednesday held 48 persons guilty of rioting, voluntarily causing hurt to public servant, arson and wrongful confinement.
“On August, 30, 2002, a tribal had died by suicide but family members claimed he was murdered. The body of the tribal was brought to the district hospital but doctors delayed the postmortem. When the doctor didn’t conduct postmortem for the third day, the villagers created a ruckus. They attacked authorities and firing took place which claimed three lives. Then SP Rajababu Singh and collector SN Mishra were also injured in the incident,” said the police.
Also Read: Bengaluru: Engineering student gets 5 years jail for celebrating Pulwama attack
The 48 guilty persons include a local BJP leader Arun Dwivedi. They were booked under sections 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage to amount of one hundred or (in case of agricultural produce) ten rupees), 148 (rioting), 332 (Voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 342 (Punishment for wrongful confinement) and 427 (Mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) of IPC.
On September 2, 2002, a group of people attacked then superintendent of police, collector and other officers after a tribal died by suicide and doctors delayed the post mortem.