NIA court in Jagdalpur sentences 10 convicts to death for the 2013 Jheeram Ghati attack

A special National Investigation Agency court in Jagdalpur sentenced ten convicts to death on 16 September for the 25 May 2013 Maoist attack at Jheeram Ghati in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region. Special Judge Ajay Singh Rajput had convicted them on 5 September and reserved sentence for this date. The NIA said the ten were found guilty under sections of the Indian Penal Code including 302 and 120B, the Arms Act, the Explosive Substances Act and multiple provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, in case RC-06/2013/NIA/DLI.

The ten named in court records are Pramila Modiyam, Chaitu Lekam alias Munna, Sumitra alias Sumitra Punem Modiyam, Mukka Mandavi, Kosa Kawasi alias Kosaram, Ayata Markam, Madkami Deva, Joga Madkami, Banjami Sanna alias Chamru alias Denga, and Mahadev Nag. An eleventh accused died during the trial. All ten are in central jail. They have 30 days to appeal to the Chhattisgarh High Court. A death sentence from a trial court cannot be carried out unless the High Court confirms it.

The ambush hit the Congress party’s Parivartan Yatra convoy on the road from Sukma to Jagdalpur. Armed cadres of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) surrounded the vehicles in the Darbha area. Twenty-seven people were killed and 38 injured. Among the dead were state Congress president Nandkumar Patel and his son Dinesh, Mahendra Karma, often called the Bastar Tiger, former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla, and Uday Mudaliar. The attack removed most of the party’s senior state leadership in a single afternoon.

The prosecution case ran for nearly 13 years. Investigators examined 101 witnesses. The NIA filed a charge sheet of about 1,000 pages in 2015. The court accepted the account of a planned assault rather than a chance encounter. Defence lawyers asked for a sentence short of death. The judge imposed capital punishment under several of the most serious heads, a combination the NIA described as unusual in Naxal-violence cases.

Death penalty law in India still requires a second look. Confirmation hearings will rehear the evidence and the question of whether the case meets the “rarest of rare” test. Appeals can then go to the Supreme Court. The calendar from here is measured in years, not weeks. For the families of Patel, Karma and Shukla the judgment is the first completed trial-court reckoning. For the convicts it is the start of the appellate clock.

The political meaning in Chhattisgarh is layered. Karma had led the Salwa Judum mobilisation against the Maoists and was a prime target. Patel was the face of the state Congress. Shukla was a national figure from an older generation. A court in Jagdalpur, sitting in the same region as the ambush, has now named ten people and written a death sentence against each. Whether those sentences survive the High Court is a separate legal event. The factual finding that the convoy was hunted, not stumbled upon, is the part of the 16 September order that will be hardest to unwind.