Terming a murder case as ‘rarest of rare’ crime, a Court in Odisha’s Keonjhar on Wednesday sentenced to death five assailants who executed the barbaric murder of the then Anandapur block chairman Ramchandra Behera five years back.
The barbarous nature of the murder had triggered statewide furore as the assailants had chopped off one of the hands and lower limbs of the deceased and had made public display of the body parts to terrorise the public.
The Additional District sessions judge, Anandapur convicted the accused persons Nira Prusty, Alekh Prusty, Arun Prusty, Sanjit Prusty, Dola Boitei and awarded capital punishment after finding it to be a rarest of rare case.
Behera was murdered on 25 March, 2019 in the presence of his young daughter. However, the assailants had left her unharmed.
The Court on the basis of circumstantial, material and medico-legal evidence awarded capital punishment to the assailants under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The Court relied on the depositions of 53 witnesses of the horrifying crime, said Ashwini Kumar Mallick, public prosecutor.