INDIA: 82-YEAR-OLD GETS DEATH PENALTY FOR 2008 'MASS MURDERS' IN RAJASTHAN'S DHOLPUR

May 3, 2023:

An SC/ST court in Dholpur district on April 25, 2023 sentenced an 82- year-old man in a 15-year-old case of shooting four MGNREGS workers to death.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on the convict, Kirti Ram.
The four victims worked under the MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme).
The SC/ST Act, 1989, is an Act to prevent the commission of offences of Atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
The incident took place at around 9.30am on July 9, 2008, when road construction work under NREGA was going on at Dhaundhe Ka Pura village under Sadar police station of Dholpur district, said special public prosecutor Mahir Hasan Rizvi.
Kirti Ram and his accomplices fired at the people working at the site, and four workers died, he added. After considering the evidence, special judge Narendra Meena of the SC/ST court found Kirti Ram guilty of the four murders and issued the death sentence on April 25.
The three other accused are currently lodged in jail, and their trial is going on in the court while seven accused in the case are absconding after getting bail.
Rizvi said that Jaipal, the son of one of the victims, Ratanlal Jatav, a resident of Dhaundhe Ka Pura village of Bari sub-division of the district, had lodged a complaint at Bari police station about the firing and the deaths.
Jaipal said that Ratanlal, Natthilal, Ramswaroop, Bhanwar Lal and Pappu had come to work at the site in the village under MNREGS.
Around 9.30am, Kirti Ram's son Jalim Gurjar, Suresh Gurjar, Vikram, Chandrabhan alias Atta, Puran, Bhagwan Singh, Raju, Guddu, Kalla, Suresh Thakur and Bachchu Singh reached there armed with weapons, he said. "All the accused started quarrelling with the victims as soon as they reached there and started firing with their illegal weapons while abusing them.
Nattilal, Ratanlal, Ramswaroop and Ramveer died on the spot in the firing.
Police started the investigation by registering a case and arrested eleven accused," said Rizvi.