Bhubaneswar: The Jajpur Additional District and Sessions Court today sentenced 17 persons to life imprisonment in connection with the immolation of a couple on suspicion of practising sorcery in Jajpur district of Odisha in 2020.
The court convicted them after examining as many as 20 witnesses and other evidence to the case said public prosecutor Rajat Kumar Rout.
The court also slapped a penalty of Rs 10,000 on each of the convicts, Rout added.
As per the case records, some villagers had forcibly entered into the house of a couple—Shaila Balmuj and Sambari Balmuj at Nimapali village under Kalinganagar police limits in Jajpur during the late hours of July 7, 2020 and attacked them over suspicion of practicing sorcery.
They later set the couple’s house on fire. The couple was charred to death.
Police arrested as many as 17 villagers in connection with the incident.
