Cuttack: A court in Odisha’s Cuttack district Wednesday sentenced nine people to life imprisonment for murdering two elderly BJP workers in 2021.
The Additional District Judge at Salepur, however, acquitted one of the accused for lack of evidence against him.
Kulamani Baral (75) and Dibyasingh Baral (82), BJP workers of Mahanga in Cuttack district, were hacked to death in January 2021.
A total of 10 people were arrested in this connection, while another person whose name was in the FIR, was killed in a road accident.
The then state law minister Pratap Jena, the local BJD legislator, was also named in the FIR lodged by Kulamani’s son.
The Salepur court had prima facie found out that a murder case was made out against Jena. It was transferred to a Bhubaneswar Special Court set up to hear cases against MLAs and MPs following a Supreme Court order.
Briefing reporters outside the court premises, the public prosecutor said that the nine accused were convicted under Sections 302 and 120-B of the then IPC.
The court then sentenced them to life imprisonment.
PTI