The entire family of Dinabandhu Mallick and Nirmala was wiped out in the incident.
Talking to mediapersons later, Crime Branch advocate Chittaranjan Kanungo said the court awarded life imprisonment till death to Himadri Das alias Rahim Khan and his wife Ayesha Begum, and life imprisonment to Fakira Mallick, brother-in-law of Dinabandhu and a retired district inspector of schools.
Additional District & Sessions Judge Chintamani Panda, who had convicted the three accused on February 6 this year, pronounced the quantum of sentence on Friday on the basis of the statement of 31 witnesses.
In his reaction, Sankar Mallick, a relative of Dinabandhu, said his family is not satisfied with the verdict of the court. “The manner in which the assailants had killed two innocent girls and their parents, we had expected that the court will pronounce capital punishment for the three accused,” he pointed out.
According to Crime Branch investigation, Fakir, brother-in-law of Nirmala, had come in contact with Himadri during a train journey and befriended him. Later, he introduced Himadri to Dinabandhu and his family. After Himadri struck up a friendship with the family, Fakir plotted with the former and his wife to kill Dinabandhu to acquire his property. As per the plan, Himadri and Ayesha visited Dinabandhu’s house on September 21, 2015, and stayed overnight.
During the night, the couple murdered Dinabandhu and his wife Nirmala by slitting their throat. Later they were forced to kill the two minor daughters Saswati (12) and Pranati (4) as they who woke up from their sleep and witnessed the gory incident. After committing the murder, the duo fled with valuables and gold ornaments on Dinabandhu’s motorcycle. After reaching Cuttack, the left the bike near Jobra and went to Assam.
However, the Crime Branch, in course of the investigation, traced their whereabouts and arrested them from Hailakandi in Assam in October last year and seized the stolen gold ornaments and cash from their possession.
