Ranchi: Exercising his powers under section 319 of CrPC, the court of additional judicial commissioner Shivpal Singh made eight new persons accused in the February 2016 campus murder of Class VII student Binay Mahto of Sapphire International School.
The new accused are school principal Dhruba Das, former vice-principal Madhumita Banerjee, then art teacher Durbanand Jana, then hostel warden Atanu Nag, then hostel wing parent Kananika Bose, then security guards Somra Murmu and Chama Munda and then nurse Putul.
All of them have appeared before court as prosecution witnesses in the last two years.
The order came on Friday after the court dismissed the petition of prosecution lawyer seeking more time to produce witnesses head of boarding and English teacher R.N. Pradhan and biology teacher Vaibhav Mishra, and recorded statements of accused Hindi teacher Nazia Hussain and her husband Arif Ali Ansari.
The lawyer of Binay's father Manbahal Mahto, advocate Rajesh Kumar, told this paper that the accused had been directed to appear on June 11. "The court directed the accused to appear on June 11 and observed they were conspirators and tampered with evidence. Cognisance has been taken against them under section 120B ( conspiracy), 201 ( concealment of evidence) of IPC and section 319 or CrPC (power of trial court to make anyone an accused or a witness during trial in the interests of justice)," advocate Kumar said.
Additional public prosecutor Ashok Kumar Rai confirmed the order.
In another development, Juvenile Justice Board where the same case against two children of the accused teachers Nazia and Arif was listed for judgment on Saturday, deferred hearing till June 4.
Binay's father Manbahal Mahto welcomed the new development but said it was too early to come to a conclusion till conviction."Initially, four persons (Durbanand Jana, Vishwanath Poddar, Dinesh Raibole, Atanu Nag) were caught but they were let off. Then a four-member teacher family was sent to judicial custody. Now after two years of trial, court made eight new persons accused. The new list includes two who were detained the first time (Durbanand and Atanu). God knows if it was a school or den of criminals."
Binay's mother Kashila Devi believed more names would surface. "The role of school chairman Rohit Sahu, who claimed to have given full campus security, and co-chairperson Mohita Sahu, who used to take care of the school, as well as head of boarding R.N. Pradhan, who was supposed to take care of the hostel children, and accountant Sandeep Sinha, who resided in the same hostel as my son, should be examined," she said.