Guwahati, July 16: The Kamrup district and sessions court today deferred its final ruling in the Parag Kumar Das murder case to July 28.

District and sessions judge, Kamrup, D.K. Mahanta, who was to deliver the final verdict in the case today deferred the ruling without assigning any reason in a packed courtroom this morning.

Das, who was the executive editor of vernacular daily, Asomiya Pratidin, was shot dead in broad daylight on May 17, 1996.

The CBI probed the case and filed the chargesheet in January 2001.

The central investigating agency had chargesheeted four surrendered Ulfa rebels in the case, two of them posthumously.

Of those who were chargesheeted, Biswajit Saikia alias Tapan Dutta and Diganta Kumar Baruah were killed before the chargesheet was filed while another accused, Nayan Das alias Guli, was killed later during the pendency of the trial in the case.

The lone surviving accused whose name figures in the chargesheet is Mridul Phukan alias Samar Kakati of Sivasagar district. He is absconding.

Two other suspects in the murder case — Promode Gogoi and Prabin Sarma — were not chargesheeted by the CBI for lack of evidence against them.

The hearing of the case began in 2003.

“On July 4, the judge fixed today as the date for the pronouncement of verdict but he deferred it to July 28 without giving any reason. We were waiting for justice for more than a decade and now we will have to wait for some more time,” Pallab Das, the brother of Parag Das, said.

“There has been a delay in the probe as well as the trial but all we want is justice,” he added.

The investigating agency, in the chargesheet, had stated that Das — who was also the secretary-general of human rights body, Manab Adhikar Sangram Samity (MASS) — was killed because he was a vocal critic of the activities of the surrendered Ulfa militants.

“The people of Assam are waiting for the verdict with bated breath and we hope justice will prevail,” Aditya Lahkar, the secretary-general of MASS, said.

“Already more than 13 years have passed and we do not want any further delay because justice delayed is justice denied,” Lahkar said.

He said the people were losing patience and if more time was taken for the delivery of justice, they may lose faith in the judiciary.

The probe into the murder case has had its share of controversies.

In June 2000, a group of prominent citizens, concerned at the “inordinate delay” in the investigation, had even filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Gauhati High Court, seeking its intervention to speed up the probe.