From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: The Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Kamrup District here on Friday convicted 11 of the accused in the sensational GS Road molestation case in Guwahati that occurred on July 9, including prime accused Amarjyoti Kalita.
Four other accused including local television channel journalist Gaurav Jyoti Neog, Hafizuddin, Diganta Basumatary and Jitumoni Deka were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
The CJM, SP Moitra, convicted prime accused Amarjyoti Kalita along with 10 others under various Sections of IPC.
Besides Kalita, the others convicted include Puspendra Das, Sikandar Basfor, Dhanraj Basfor, Nabajyoti Baruah, Nabajyoti Deka, Deepak Deb, Rubul Ali, Deba Das, Rupkanta Kalita and Ghanashyam Kumar Malik. All of them were sentenced to two years in jail and asked to pay a fine of Rs 2000 each.
Altogether 16 persons were taken into custody, but one of them was a minor and his case was being heard in the juvenile justice court.
All the accused were currently out on bail and the convicted ones have submitted an application with the CJM that as they were not satisfied with the judgement and have the statutory right to appeal before the Sessions Court within 30 days, they should continue to be on bail during the appeal period.
The unprecedented incident which occurred around 9 pm on the Guwahati-Shillong Road, drew the attention of the entire nation.
The girl was molested by a group of people outside a bar on the night while the entire episode was recorded by journalists from a local TV channel including Gaurav Jyoti Neog which was later telecast and even uploaded on Youtube.
The government had constituted a Special Investigation Team headed by Superintendent of Police (Operation) Ranjan Bhuyan which submitted the chargesheet on September 4 in which 16 persons were named as accused.
Gaurav Jyoti Neog was earlier relieved of his duty in the TV channel in view of public outcry over his ‘alleged role of instigating the episode’.