NDFB leader Dhiren Boro gets five-year jail, also release order

Gangtok, Oct 18 (UNI) National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) vice-president Dhiren Boro, who had been convicted under POTA four days ago, was today sentenced to a five-year jail term by a local court in Sikkim.

The court, however, ordered his subsequent release, as Boro had already spent over five years in a Sikkim jail since his arrest in 2003.

District and Sessions Court Judge (East&North) SW Lepcha, who had been designated as the Special judge to try POTA case, pronounced the quantum of punishment.

Mr Lepcha had convicted the NDFB leader of charges under the POTA Act, 2002 and Section 5 of Explosive Substances Act 1908 on October 14.

Apart from five-year jail term, Boro was slapped with a penalty of Rs 6,000, default of which would incur imprisonment of one month.

The sessions court said the period of detention in judicial custody--five years, nine months and seventeen days, had already been undergone by the convict, and added that Boro should be set off against substantive period of sentence.

''He shall be released, if he is not required on any other cases in Sikkim. However, he has to deposit the amount imposed as fine before leaving the Court,'' the order said.

Boro had become the first person in Sikkim to be convicted under POTA. He was nabbed by the Sikkim police, along with three others, including his wife, from a hideout in Gangtok on January 1, 2003.

The arrests were made after a raid was conducted on a flat rented by Boro at Samdur near 5th Mile in Gangtok.

He had been hiding for almost a year posing as a businessman.

He was wanted in several cases in Assam, other northeastern states and Bhutan.

Plastic explosives, two hand grenades, a mobile phone, a computer, some e-mail addresses as well as Indian and Nepalese currencies were seized during the raid.

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