Assam : Gauhati High Court commutes death penalty to 3-year jail in Arnamai Bora murder case

The Gauhati High Court on January 17 has reduced the death sentence of two convicts to three years imprisonment after noting that they had not raped Arnamai Bora. The court said that police did not have any documentary evidence to support their claim. Based on the evidence presented, the Court reduced convict’s death sentence to three years in jail.

Earlier, on December 2022, Gauhati High Court quashed the order for the rape of Arnamai Bora and the execution of the killers. The convicts Salim Uddin and Moinul Haque were sentenced to death.The Nimma court had imposed the order of execution.
The convicts Salim Uddin and Moinul Haque had filed an appeal in the Gauhati High Court against the verdict.

Finally, the execution order against them was overturned by the high court.Additionally, the high court has put a hold on the sentence they were given.The decision was handed down by a division bench consisting of Justices N Kateshwar Singh and Arun Dev Chaudhary.

In 2018, The primary defendant in the sensational rape and murder of 58-year-old schoolteacher Arnamai Bora received a death sentence from the Additional District and Sessions Judge Court of Hojai in central Assam. The horrific incident happened on May 31st of 2018 in the district of Jamunmukh.

Even though co-accused Salimuddin received a “life sentence,” the court gave the primary accused Moinul Haque a “death sentence.”The horrific rape and murder of the school teacher sparked widespread protests throughout the state. Police launched an investigation after the incident and detained two people in relation to it. Moinul Hoque and Salimuddin, two suspects who are accused of taking part in the rape and killing incident, were apprehended.

The two were apprehended on June 1 of last year, one day following the discovery of the teacher’s body at Changjurai Ilashi Deuri Primary School in the vicinity of Jamunamukh near the Kopili River. The teacher would frequently take a boat to travel to and from the school across the river.

Arnamai Bora was waylaid by the two on May 31 of last year as she was returning from school after having been followed for a while. The perpetrators admitted to the police that the teacher had been raped, strangled to death, and then her body had been dumped into the Kopili River.