Criminal appeal no. 292-DB of 2009
Punjab-Haryana High Court
BENCH: Hon’ble H. Gupta J., Hon’ble F.D. Singh J.
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 20 January, 2017
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 of IPC (Punishment for murder)
- Section 307 of IPC (attempt to murder)
- Section 363 of IPC (Punishment for kidnapping)
- Section 342 of IPC (Punishment for wrongful confinement)
- Section 467 of IPC (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc.)
- Section 506 of IPC (Punishment for criminal intimidation)
- Section 120B of IPC (Punishment for criminal conspiracy)
- Section 25 of Arms Act(Punishment for certain offences)
- Section 4 of The Anti Hijacking Act (Punishment for hijacking)
BACK HISTORY
On 24 December 1999, at about 4:10 pm, an Indian Airline Flight No. IC-814 ‘Kathmandu to Delhi’ took off from Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu with 179 passengers including 24 foreigners, 11 crew members and 4 infants. After being airborne for 45 minutes, the flight was hijacked by five hijackers with deadly weapons such as revolvers, hand grenades, and knives. One of the hijackers directed the pilot to take the flight towards Lahor but the Lahore Air Traffic Control didn’t permit the aircraft to land. But due to shortage of fuel, the flight was landed at the Amritsar for re-fueling. The hijackers demanded the release of Maulana Masoor Azhar confined in Jammu Jail, 35 other militant associates, handing over a dead body of Sajjad Afghani, who was killed while attempting the jailbreak & buried at Jammu as well as the ransom of US $ 2 million. The hijackers inflicted passengers namely Rupin Katyal and Satnam Singh with the blows of the knife to scare other passengers. The flight took off from Amritsar at 7:45 pm without any re-fueling and after some time, the pilot got the permission to land at Lahor. After re-fueling from Lahore, the flight was again airborne and taken to the United Arab Emirates, where the flight was landed on Minhad Base Airport in Dubai at 1:30 am. There the 27 passengers including the dead body of Rupin Katyal and injured Satyam Singh. The flight again took off and landed at Kandahar in Afghanistan at 4:00 am.
For the safety of remaining passengers, the Government of India released Maulana, Umar Sheikh and Mohd. Zargar in exchange of passengers and Aircraft as the result of negotiations between the Indian team and hijackers on 31 December 1999 at 5:30 pm.
The accused Abdul Latif and Dilip Bhujel were found to be the Indian nationals, whereas accused Yusuf Nepali was the Nepali national and the other seven proclaimed offenders were a national of Pakistan.
POSTMORTEM REPORT
The postmortem examination on the dead body of Rupin Katyal was conducted by Dr. Alexander Khakha. The postmortem report concluded that the maximum injuries over the neck and all other injuries were caused by a sharp-edged weapon and injury no. 29 was caused by blunt weapon. Some of those injuries were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.
FORENSIC REPORT
The medical examination of victim Satnam Singh, who was admitted in the hospital for the treatment was conducted by Dr. Tarun Gupta. According to the examination report, he proved the admission and discharge of victim as well as deposed the presence of four cuts near the chin, two in the left mandible area and one over the route of the anterior side of the neck. This indicated that all the injuries were on vital parts of the victim’s body.
JUDGEMENT
The charges framed against accused Abdul Latif Adam Momin, Dilip Kumar Bhujel, Bhupal Man Damai @ Yusuf Nepali for the offences punishable under sections 302, 307, 363, 467, 506 along with section 120B of IPC and under section 4 of the Anti Hijacking Act, 1982 were set aside by the court and convicted under the section 25 of Arms Act,1959.
The court convicted accused Dilip Kumar Bhujel & accused Yusuf Nepali and sentenced them to the period already undergone i.e. about 14 years.
Court confirmed the conviction of accused Abdul Latif Adam Momin under section 25 of Arms Act and sentenced to life term.