‘Attempt to murder’ accused gets 7 years RI

LUDHIANA: A local court has sentenced a person to seven years rigorous imprisonment for ‘attempt to murder’ an Australian-educated training in-charge at a stud farm in Noorpur Bet. The court of additional sessions judge Rajeev K Beri also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the convict, and in default of payment of fine, he will have to further undergo rigorous imprisonment for two years and six months.
On 25 March 2015, Ladowal police had booked Rajinder Singh of village Mehro in Moga and Satpal Singh (who has expired) under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the IPC.

As per prosecution, the complainant, Avadh Mathrani, got a statement recorded with police on 25 March 2015 that he had done B.Sc. course in Equine Science from Melbourne, Australia, and since 20 September 2014, along with Sarup Singh, Manohar Singh, and other staff, had been working as a training in-charge in the Riding School at Mangat Stud Farm, Noorpur Bet. Prior to him, there were many employees who were maintaining that stud farm. To make the training school profitable, the complainant was employed on Rs 85,000 per month, and his staff on salary as per their work, on an oral agreement. Some persons already working at the stud farm included Rajinder Singh (current accused), Satpal (deceased accused) and Shambu Yadav (absconding accused against whom a challan is not yet presented).

After Avadh joined that stud farm, the already working employees started nursing a grudge against him. They would start abusing him on trivial matters. Avadh would forbid them from doing so, as both girls and boys visit the training school. On 21 March 2015 at about 9.15pm, Avadh and his junior, Ashish Sharma, met their employer Jatinder Singh Mangat at his house in Ghumar Mandi (Ludhiana) and then reached the said stud farm at Noorpur Bet, where Rajinder and Satpal attacked him, and later Shambu also joined them. Avadh stated that the assailants had inflicted injuries on him with an intention to kill him.

During the investigation, Shambu could not be arrested. However, Satpal and Rajinder were arrested, and after completion of investigation, a challan was presented before the court of law. During the trial, the accused pleaded false implication, and during the defence evidence stage, Satpal had expired. The additional public prosecutor for the state pleaded for punishment to the accused on the basis of statement of prosecution witnesses and medical evidence.

The defence counsel argued that Rajinder, the surviving accused, was not even working under Avadh, nor had he any ground or reason to hold a grudge. He said Rajinder was not answerable to Avadh, and the alleged abuses were all misconceptions. The court turned down the arguments of the defence counsel and held Rajinder guilty under sections 120-B, 323, 325, and 307 read with Section 34 IPC.