GUWAHATI:
The Special Judge Court of Kokrajhar on Wednesday convicted three persons of gangraping and murdering two teenage girls at Abhayakuti in the district nine months ago.
Those held guilty are Farijjul Rahman, Mujammel Sheikh and Najibul Ali.
Special judge C Chaturvedi said that the quantum of punishment for the three will be pronounced on April 8.
Earlier in June 2021, two minor girls belonging to the indigenous Rabha tribe, who had gone missing in the afternoon of June 11, 2021, were found hanging from a tree in Abhayakuti village the same evening.
After the family members and relatives of the two girls claimed that they were raped and murdered, the police had registered a case at Kokrajhar Sadar Police Station under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2019 and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
 Earlier, seven persons were arrested in connection with the case, and a special investigation team ascertained that it was not a case of suicide, as was initially made out to be, but a case of rape and murder.
Subsequently, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had stepped in and ordered the police to conduct a thorough investigation of the case. He also visited the family members of the victims on June 13, 2021, and on June 15 the chief minister made a statement confirming the arrest of seven people for the rape and murder of the two minor girls.
It has come to light that the girls were strangulated after being gang-raped and later, their bodies were hung from a tree to make it look like a suicide.