Two sentenced to life for cracker protest murder

JAYANTA BASU AND SOUMEN BHATTACHARJEE

The Barasat court on Tuesday sentenced two men to life imprisonment for killing a man when he protested the bursting of firecrackers on the night of Kali Puja in 2013. Pintu Biswas, a 42-year-old father of two, was beaten to death on November 2, 2013, outside his house in Asoknagar's Sukanta Pally, on the city's northern fringe. "Some local youths were bursting loud chocolate bombs after 11 at night," his wife Namita had told Metro then. "When my husband stepped out and asked them to stop, they beat him to death." The two who have been sentenced to life for murdering Biswas are Goutam Ballav and Sekhar Kirtania. "The convicts attacked the victim after he protested bursting of firecrackers," public prosecutor Rafikul Islam said. The verdict was passed by fifth additional district judge Tapan Mondal. Although the chargesheet had been framed against five people, three are absconding. Defence lawyer Manoj Pramanik said his clients would move the high court against the order. The state's noise law bans bursting firecrackers like chocolate bombs that produce 90dB or more noise at a distance of five metres from the source. All kinds of crackers, irrespective of their noise level, are banned between 10pm and 6am. Violations are rampant across the state, including in Calcutta, especially during Kali Puja and Diwali. Since the noise law was enacted, eight people have been killed in the state for opposing the bursting of crackers. "It's a landmark order since in almost all cases the murderers are roaming free," Biswajit Mukherjee, former chief law officer of the state pollution control board, said. Mukherjee had in 2013 filed a case in Calcutta High Court on behalf of an NGO, demanding action in noise-related murder cases and compensation for families of the deceased. The case is still pending. "Such a verdict will embolden common people to oppose noise violations and will hopefully deter violators," Mukherjee said. "Over the past few years, we have found that violations are common even around hospitals during Kali Puja and Diwali," a representative of Sabuj Mancha, a platform of environmentalists and green organisations in Bengal, said. "People have gradually lost the confidence to complain, forget opposing noise violators," he said. [Courtesy: The Telegraph]