Patna, Jan. 24: For once, justice was not delayed and, subsequently, denied. Bihar police have cracked a crime and got the criminals convicted in 10 days, setting a benchmark for cops across the country to expedite the trial process.

A fast-track court yesterday slapped three years of rigorous imprisonment on three criminals after finding them guilty of robbing some people on the Banka-Deoghar road in Banka on January 12.

Sumit Sah, Kamdev Kumar Tanti and Abhay Singh had intercepted a few vehicles passing through the road under Katoria police station and robbed several passengers. Acting on a tip-off, a police team rushed to the spot and caught the three robbers. They found three pistols, a few cartridges and three motorcycles on the trio.

During investigation, the police learnt that the three were members of an inter-state gang involved in highway robberies. Sah is from the Sultanganj area of Bhagalpur, while Tanti and Singh are residents of Haveli Kharagpur in Munger and Burdwan in Bengal respectively.

The police submitted chargesheet in the case on January 14, two days after the three were arrested. The cops also appealed to the court to list the case for a speedy trial. The chief judicial magistrate of Banka, Bharat Tiwary, transferred the case to a fast-track court headed by judicial magistrate Anil Kumar Thakur.

The trial concluded within six days and all the three accused were found guilty. Yesterday, the court sentenced the trio to three years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 1,000 on each of them. Public prosecutor Hriday Kumar Pal ensured that the witnesses in the case were examined on a day-to-day basis.

“This is perhaps the first case in Bihar in which the accused have been convicted and sent to prison within 10 days since the crime was committed,” said a senior IPS officer posted at the state police headquarters.

The Banka court’s verdict came within a week of a Lakhisarai court holding an accused guilty of trying to kill a doctor, V.K. Mishra, posted at the Suryagarha primary health centre in Lakhisarai district. Varun Kumar was sent to 10 years of jail. Mishra was shot at for not agreeing to pay extortion money to Kumar. The court had taken about four-and-a-half months to pronounce its judgment.

Records available with the state police headquarters revealed a court had a few years ago pronounced judgment in a robbery case within 13 days from the day of the crime. Abhayanand was then posted as the additional director-general of police (headquarters). The police headquarters had last week asked all superintendents of police to accelerate the trial process in cases of serious offence. “Ensure deposition of witnesses in all important cases in respective courts on time,” an order issued by director-general of police Abhayanand said.