Overview
- Twenty people were found guilty Monday in the Nagaon sessions court for the 2018 mob killing of Abhijit Nath and Nilotpal Das, with convictions under IPC sections including 302 read with 149 for murder as part of an unlawful assembly.
- The court will announce punishments on Friday, April 24, with Section 302 carrying possible sentences of life imprisonment or the death penalty.
- The judge ordered the 25 acquitted to be released from Nagaon Central Jail unless they face other cases.
- Prosecutors said witness hostility and thin identification evidence hindered the case, with five eyewitnesses naming 19 men out of a crowd the court described as 150 to 200 people.
- Families of the two victims said they will appeal the acquittals in a case rooted in false child‑abductor rumors that spread locally and on social media.