Overview

• On September 23, the Himachal Pradesh High Court commuted the death sentences of Chander Sharma and Vikrant Bakshi to life imprisonment and acquitted Tejinder Pal Singh.
• Parents and hundreds of residents marched in Shimla wearing black blindfolds, carrying Yug’s photos, and demanding the death penalty be restored.
• The court said the record did not show the accused could not be reformed, and it also cleared Sharma and Bakshi of charges under IPC Sections 347 and 364A.
• Yug’s father Vinod Gupta said the family was denied justice and would challenge the High Court order in the Supreme Court.
• The case involved the 2014 kidnapping and killing of the four-year-old, whose remains were found in a Kelston water tank in 2016, after a 2018 trial court had called the crime “rarest of rare” and imposed death sentences.