Mridul Phukan alias Samar Kakati, the prime accused in the murder of eminent journalist Parag Das, was Tuesday acquitted by a Guwahati court for lack of evidence.
District and Sessions Judge, Kamrup, Justice Dilip Kumar Mahanta, delivered the verdict in a jam-packed court amidst tight security. The one-line verdict said Phukan, one of the three living accused in the murder case, was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Following the verdict, the Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS), a rights body founded among others by Das, called for a bandh to protest against the court's decision on July 30. "The killers have been set free which is a sheer mockery of the legal system. The MASS has given a call for a bandh to protest against the judgment," MASS leader Lachit Bordoloi said.
Parag Das, editor of popular daily Asomiya Pratidin, was shot dead in the city’s Rajgarh Road near Chandmari in broad daylight on May 17, 1996 as he was picking up his 7-year-old son from school. Former members of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) were said to have killed him.
In June 2000, a group of prominent citizens, concerned at the “inordinate delay†in the investigation, had even filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Gauhati High Court, seeking its intervention to speed up the probe. Though Assam Police probed the murder initially, the case was subsequently handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). It investigated the case and filed a chargesheet in January 2001. The hearing of the case began in 2003.
Among those chargesheeted, Biswajit Saikia alias Tapan Dutta and Diganta Kumar Baruah were killed before the chargesheet was filed. Another accused, Nayan Das alias Guli, was killed later during the pendency of the trial in the case. Two other suspects — Promode Gogoi and Prabin Sarma — were not chargesheeted by the CBI for lack of evidence against them.
The charge sheet submitted by the CBI had featured accounts of around 70 witnesses. The schoolchildren who had seen the killing from close quarters had identified Phukan from photographs as one of the gunmen who killed Das.
