Three persons accused of brutally killing a four-year-old boy were convicted by a sessions court here today.
Sessions Judge Virender Singh held Chander Sharma, Tajender Singh and Vikrant Bakshi responsible for kidnapping and murdering the little boy.
The judge deferred the hearing to August 13 for arguments between public prosecutor Randip Singh Parmar and defence counsel Rajneesh Lal on the quantum of sentence.
Public Prosecutor Randip Singh Parmar told PTI that statements of 105 witnesses were recorded in this case. It took almost one year to record the statements of the witnesses to ensure conviction of the accused, he said.
Yug's father Vinod Gupta was present in the court when the accused were convicted.
He told PTI that the conviction strengthened his faith in the judiciary. "I request the court to pronounce capital punishment as they had committed rare of the rarest crimes by kidnapping and drowning my four-year-old son in a water tank after forcibly administering liquor," he said.
Angry protests had broken out in the town with residents demanding death sentence for the three accused.
Sharma, Tajender Singh and Bakshi were booked under sections 302 (murder), 201 (disappearance of evidence/false information), 342 (wrongful confinement), 364A (kidnapping for ransom) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Yug was abducted from the busy Ram Bazar of Shimla on June 14, 2014, and killed after seven days even before a ransom call was made.
His skeletal remains were recovered from a water tank of the Shimla Municipal Corporation in the Kelston area on August 21, 2016, after the inquiry was handed over to the CID.
Yug's father Vinod Gupta had filed a missing complaint at the Sadar police station the same day. A criminal case was registered on June 16, while a letter seeking a ransom of Rs 3.6 crore was received on June 27. Three more ransom letters were received subsequently.
As per the prosecution, Yug was tortured, starved and forcibly served liquor before being thrown alive into a water tank tied to a heavy stone. On January 29, 2016, some MC employees found his skeleton while cleaning the tank after the jaundice outbreak.
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