India
Bengal 2020 body chopping case: Death penalty for 7; girl’s testimony turned out to be of vital importance, says lawyer | India News – Times of India
What prompted Judge Shibshankar Ghosh to call it a rare case were the photographs of Mal’s body being dismembered and which the killers clicked on a mobile phone. They then packed up the body parts and dumped them in different places
Police said Mal was in love with a girl and was going to marry her at the end of October 2020. The girl’s testimony in the case proved most important for the conviction, said special prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee. The main accused, Bishal Das, and his associates, Ramkrishna Mondal, Raj Kumar Pramanick, Vinod Das, Ratan Bepari, Biplab Biswas and Rathin Singha, were sentenced to death.
Another suspect, Mantu Ghosh, was jailed for seven years for trying to hide the body, Chatterjee added. Das and his associates had kidnapped the victim on a motorcycle from outside his house. That night they killed him in a house in Champdani.
Initially, the police arrested all the criminals except Bishal. Those arrested led police to the dumps. However, Mal’s head was not found at the time. About a month later, Bishal was arrested in a shooting incident in Jibantala in South 24 Parganas. He was taken into custody by Chandernagore police.
The plastic-wrapped head was subsequently recovered from a canal in Baidyabati after Bishal was interrogated.