Two minors convicted of participating in the murder of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan as members of a mob of cow vigilantes in 2017 were on Friday sent by Alwar’s Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to a special home for three years. Six persons accused of having led the attack were acquitted by a sessions court in August last year.
The convicts, who were minors when they committed the crime, are in the age group of 18-21 now. They are likely to be shifted to a special home on the Central Jail premises in Jaipur.
Video footage
The JJB, headed by Principal Magistrate Sarita Dhakad, had last week held the two minors guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 147 (rioting), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code.
The video footage of the crime scene, which showed the presence of the two in the mob, and other evidence formed the grounds of the JJB’s judgment. Another juvenile, who was older than 16 years at the time, is facing trial as an accused in a court in Alwar, where his case was transferred because of the offence being covered in the category of heinous crimes.
Khan, 55, a dairy farmer from Haryana’s Nuh district, his two sons and a few others were waylaid by self-styled cow vigilantes near Behror on the Jaipur-Delhi National Highway on April 1, 2017, and thrashed on suspicion that they were smuggling cows for slaughter. Khan succumbed to his injuries two days later in a hospital.
The sentence was handed down under Section 18(1)(g) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, providing that a child found to be in conflict with law may be sent to a special home for a maximum period of three years for getting reformative services, including education, skill development, counselling, behaviour modification therapy and psychiatric support.
The Alwar sessions court had acquitted six accused in the case on August 14, 2019, giving them the benefit of the doubt on the basis of the police probe. Those let off by the court were Vipin Yadav, Kalu Ram, Dayanand, Ravindra Kumar, Yogesh Kumar and Bheem Rathi.
Appeal in High Court
The State government filed an appeal in the Rajasthan High Court against the sessions court verdict after a Special Investigation Team pointed out loopholes in the probe conducted earlier by four investigating officers.
The High Court had earlier quashed the case of illegal transport of cattle for slaughter against Khan, his sons and the owner of the pick-up truck in which they were travelling. The court had ruled that Khan had purchased the animals for dairy and not slaughter.
