Agartala, April 30: All the 12 persons found guilty in the Parimal Saha murder case yesterday were today sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment.

Pronouncing the sentence at 3pm, additional district and sessions judge S.B. Dutta described the daylight murder of Congress MLA Parimal Saha on April 7, 1983 as a case of "political intolerance".

"It emerges clearly from the circumstances of the murder that the perpetrators felt morally justified in cruelly liquidating an elected representative of people in a most brazen and cruel manner. It was a crime against society at large. They certainly had been assured of protection from any legal retribution for the heinous crime they committed," Dutta said.

He found the 12 perpetrators guilty of violating Sections 149, 302, 307, 326 and 120 (B) of the IPC and sentenced all of them to life term in jail. Before pronouncing the judgment, judge Dutta heard the final pleas of the counsels from defence and prosecution.

Advocate Samrat Kar Bhowmik, who acted as special prosecutor in the case upon high court orders, said the sentences would run concurrently. "While making my submission today, I quoted from Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People to press my point that those found guilty had not only cruelly killed two persons, including an elected MLA, but also committed a crime against the people or voters of Charilam Assembly constituency by liquidating their chosen representative in an election," he said.

Bhowmik said if the government retained his services as special prosecutor, he would press for conviction of Satya Das, one of the five persons acquitted in the case.