HC acquits two in 2017 triple murder case, sets aside death sentence

IN a significant judgment, the Orissa High Court on Monday acquitted two men who had been sentenced to death for the brutal murder of a family of three in Angul district in 2017, citing lack of conclusive evidence.

- EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Cuttack

A division bench comprising Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo and Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra allowed the criminal appeals filed by Prakash Behera and Nandakishor Sethy, setting aside their conviction and death sentence pronounced by the Additional Sessions Judge, Athamallik, on September 27, 2024.

Behera and Sethy had been convicted for the gruesome killing of a couple and their three-year-old son at Gambharimaliha village under Kishore Nagar police limits on October 9, 2017. Their throats were allegedly slit in what the trial court termed a "rarest of rare" case warranting capital punishment.