GUWAHATI: The district sessions court in Guwahati on Thursday sentenced the police superintendent of Goalpara district Amitav Sinha to two years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 after finding him guilty of an alleged custodial torture of a murder accused five years back.Immediately after the session court’s sentence, Sinha obtained bail. His counsel Angshuman Bora told TOI, “We have got bail for four weeks to appeal in the high court. There is no material against us. Our stand is that Sinha had only interrogated the murder accused, who is a charge-sheeted professional killer, and he lodged a complaint that he was tortured in police custody.”The court found Sinha guilty under Section 330 of IPC, which is ‘Voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession’ from the murder accused Gurmeet Singh. The Gauhati High Court has been monitoring the case in the district session court as the incident had created sensation in the city.Singh has alleged in his petition before the court that he was subjected to torture and was beaten with hockey stick that caused fracture in his upper arm and the police poured petrol in his rectum while he was in police custody from June 17 to June 18 of 2013.When the incident occurred, Sinha was then an additional SP of the crime branch and posted in Guwahati and had gone to interrogate Singh, who was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with the murder of businessman, Ajit Singh, of Guwahati on November 29, 2012. Ajit’s father, Prakash Singh had lodged an FIR with the Basistha Police Station here, alleging that his son was shot dead by Gurmeet.While Gurmeet was in police custody, his Rabindrar Pal Singh had filed a petition before a local court alleging custodial torture of his friend. Gurmeet’s wife also filed a petition alleging that her husband was assaulted with hockey stick on his arms as well as legs and that petrol was put in his anus. Later, on his release on bail four months later, Gurmeet too filed a complaint case of custodial torture against him before the chief judicial magistrate.Sinha’s counsel said that it is up to the state government now to take a call on Sinha, whether he would continue as the Goalpara district SP.

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