The Madhya Pradesh High Court has upheld the death sentence awarded by a lower court to three persons convicted for setting on fire a bus and causing the death of 15 passengers in Barwani district in August 2001.
Justices P K Jaiswal and J K Jain of the HC's Indore bench, however, acquitted another accused in the judgement passed yesterday.
The trial court had on September 13, 2013, sentenced Tarun Soni, Dilip Sharma and Rajkumar Kushwaha to death. All three worked for a private bus operator. Soni was a driver, Sharma a conductor and Kushwaha a cleaner.
The trial court had also sentenced bus owner Naresh Kumar Doshi to life sentence but the High Court acquitted him.
According to the prosecution, Soni and others had a spat with the driver and attendants of another private bus at Sendhwa town in Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh on August 21, 2011.
The convicts poured petrol on the other bus, which had passengers onboard, and set it on fire. Fifteen people were killed and 19 people suffered injuries in the incident.
