Mumbai: A sessions court on Monday sentenced 12 persons — including the main accused who is linked to Bhartiya Vidyarthi Sena, an erstwhile student wing of undivided Shiv Sena — to six months’ rigorous imprisonment in a 16-year-old case of rioting, assaulting and smearing ink on a municipal school teacher.“Their presence as a part of the unlawful assembly is sufficient for conviction even if no overt act is imputed to each one of them individually,” said additional sessions judge K M Jaisingani, adding that “teachers shape the future of the students and committing such offence against them when they were imparting education to the students is very serious offence.”The smearing occurred in Aug 2010 at a Mulund municipal secondary school. The court said “it was not excusable”.Most of the accused were in their 20s. One was 19 years old and another 32; the trial lasted 16 years, said the defence lawyers seeking a lenient view.“Taking a lenient view would send the wrong message in society,” said Judge Jaisingani. They “had dared to enter the school and commit the offence which is proved against them.”“They did not care” about consequences, and the crime occurred when classes were on. The court also said while there was no evidence on record, “the incident would have caused trauma to the informant, in charge headmaster, teachers, staff and students”. “No leniency needs to be shown,” the court said.The conviction was for offences of unlawful assembly, rioting, house-trespass and assaulting public servants while they were doing their official duties. The accused, however, were acquitted of the charge of wrongful confinement and criminal intimidation, after hearing additional public prosecutor Pankaj Chavan and defence lawyers SR Pathak, Ganesh Singh and others.The group of accused had confronted a teacher and accused him of beating a ninth-grader. The prosecution’s case was that the altercation escalated to violence.The court said the prosecution has proved its case with evidence but while some offences attracted two to seven years’ imprisonment, the sentence for the accused should be six months, which was the maximum sentence for ‘unlawful assembly’.
