Jajpur (Odisha):

A POCSO court in Odisha’s Jajpur district has sentenced four people to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment each for raping a girl three years ago.

The court of Jajpur POCSO judge Abhijit Palei also imposed a total fine of Rs 4 lakh on the convicts.

The convicts will have to undergo imprisonment for an additional term of six months if they fail to remit the penalty amount, the POCSO court ordered on Saturday.

According to the prosecution, the incident took place when the survivor, who was 17 years ago at that time, was returning home with a male friend on his motorcycle on the evening of March 7, 2021.

They were passing through a forest area near Kalaring Hat in Kaliapani area when the four convicts intercepted them, overpowered the girl’s male friend and took turns to rape her.

Based on a complaint later filed by the survivor, a case was registered and the four accused were arrested and booked.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A court in Odisha’s Keonjhar district has sentenced five persons to death for the murder of politician Rama Chandra Behera in 2019.

The additional district and sessions judge of Anandpur pronounced the verdict on Tuesday based on the testimony of 53 witnesses and 94 documents, additional public prosecutor Aswini Kumar Mallick said.

The five convicts are Sanjay Prusty, Ajit Prusty, Arun Prusty, Alekh Prusty and Dola Boitei. One of the accused Pramod Das, who was a minor then, is under judicial custody of a child care institute (CCI), Mallick added.

Rama Chandra Behera, a former block chairman, was brutally murdered near his residence at Dhakotha village in Keonjhar district on March 25, 2019, prior to the general and state assembly polls.

The perpetrators visited Rama Chandra Behera’s house, called him out, and then killed him. Additionally, they mutilated his body.

He was initially taken to the sub-divisional hospital in Anandpur and subsequently referred to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. However, he succumbed to his injuries on the way to Cuttack, police said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)