Life imprisonment for abductors of Roma Jhawar

Barasat, Sep 20 (UNI) A district and sessions court in North 24 Parganas today sentenced all the seven convicts, found guilty of abducting a girl for ransom in 2005, to life imprisonment and a fine.

First Additional District and Sessions judge Samaresh Prasad Chowdhury, after hearing all the convicts, passed the final verdict.

He also slapped a fine of Rs 3000 on each of them and imprisonment for an additional one year in default of payment.

''Since, the convicts are young and committed such offence for the first time, the judge considered not to give them capital punishment as prescribed under section 364A but preferred life imprisonment,'' special public prosecutor Nabakumar Ghosh said.

However, imprisonment for the period of about three and half years they had spent under judicial custody would be reduced from their jail term, he added.

The judge also sentenced the convicts to imprisonment of one year each under section 120B and 342 IPC.

Two of the accused persons were acquitted yesterday.

Roma Jhawar, a resident of Salt Lake in North Bidhannagar, was kidnapped in February 2005. The criminals had demanded Rs 20 lakhs as ransom which the police had later recovered.

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