Srinagar: A court here on Tuesday sentenced the convicts of a 2014 acid attack on a law student to life imprisonment.
The Principal District and Sessions Judge Srinagar, Jawad Ahmed, had reserved the verdict on the weekend after hearing arguments of Special Public Prosecutor A.A. Teeli who demanded maximum punishment of life imprisonment for the convicts while counsel representing the duo sought lesser punishment of ten years, considering mitigating circumstances.
On August 10, the court held the accused duo, Irshad Ahmad Wani alias Sunny of Wazirbagh Srinagar and Muhammad Umar Noor of Bemina Srinagar guilty of the offence under RPC’s Sections of 326-A (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by use of acid), 201 (destroying evidence) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
“I find that the prosecution has been able to establish the charges against the accused persons beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt. As such, this charge-sheet is accepted and the accused persons namely Irshad Amin Wani and Mohammed Umer Noor (Accused No.2), are held guilty for the offences punishable under Sections 326-A, 201 &120- B RPC.
“Absolutely no material from the defence side suggests any probable reason for falsely implicating the accused persons in this case.
“The established facts, circumstances and the chain of evidence taken cumulatively are so complete and consistent that in all human probabilities the only hypothesis is that the horrendous act of throwing acid on the victim has been committed by the accused No.2 in furtherance of the conspiracy hatched by accused No.1 with accused No.2.
“The established facts and circumstances do not leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused persons”.
On December 11, 2014, a young law student was grievously injured in the acid attack near Nowshera on the city outskirts while she was on way to her college.
Given the gravity of the offence which sent shock waves across the Valley, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted and the two accused were promptly arrested.
