KOLKATA: The Calcutta high court has freed a Bangladeshi national who spent 21 years in jail for a murder after it was established that he was a minor at the time of committing the crime. Another murder convict from Bengal’s Birbhum district, who was incarcerated for 14 years in a separate case, was also released on similar grounds.Under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, a minor cannot be kept behind bars for more than seven years, a division bench of Justices Rajasekhar Mantha and Rai Chattopadhyay said Thursday. The court directed the state to repatriate the Bangladeshi national. The bench ordered the release of both men after their ossification test reports revealed they were juvenile when the murders took place.Bangladesh national 16 at time of crime: Ossification testCounsels for the Bangladeshi national submitted that he was born on Jan 1, 1990, and was a ‘child in conflict with law’ at the time of the crime. On Feb 8, 2005, he and two others had hacked a man to death in Basirhat near the India-Bangladesh border. While his co-accused died during pendency of the case, he was convicted and jailed in 2005. In 2016, he moved to HC. On April 11, 2022, his appeal came up before a division bench, which ruled that the JJ Act allows a convict to raise the plea of juvenility even at the appellate stage. The HC ordered an ossification test. A report submittedby the additional district and sessions judge said the convict was about 36 years at the time of the recent ossification test. Based on that, it was determined he was around 16 years old when he committed the crime.
