Guwahati: The Assam judicial department has given its opinion in favour of transferring the trial of Dokmoka lynching case out of Karbi Anglong district for a free and fair trial.

The department has given its opinion to the home department and it was submitted before Gauhati High Court, which has registered a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) in connection with the lynching.

An official source said the judicial department had stated that the prosecutors would feel safer if the trial was shifted out of Karbi Anglong, which would ensure a free and fair trial.

While the state government has submitted its views, the high court, which is monitoring the progress of the case, will consider it and take a final decision on shifting of the trial out of Karbi Anglong.

Two youths from Guwahati, Nilotpal Das and Abhijit Nath, were lynched by a mob at Dokmoka in Karbi Anglong on June 8 on suspicion of being child-lifters.

Karbi Anglong deputy commissioner Mridul Kumar Mahanta and district superintendent of police G.V. Siva Prasad, in their affidavits filed in the high court, stated that there was no empirical evidence to suggest that the process to deliver justice would be hampered if the trial takes place in Karbi Anglong but certain probabilities need to be examined.

They pointed out that all the witnesses and the accused belong to the same area and hence, when the trial commences, efforts could be made to threaten or win over the witnesses but such possibility cannot be avoided even if the location of the trial is shifted outside Karbi Anglong.

"The Karbi Anglong police said they were fully prepared to protect the witnesses but the general opinion is that shifting of the trial outside Karbi Anglong would relieve the pressure on witnesses and prosecutors," the source said.

The police have also recorded statements of some of the witnesses under Section 164 CrPC before the court as evidence given in a court under oath has more legal sanctity than a statement given before police.

Altogether 48 persons have been arrested in connection with the lynching.

Two FIRs have been lodged - one by Abhijit's father Ajit Kumar Nath and another by Nilotpal's father Gopal Chandra Das - at Dokmoka police station under Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.

The police have informed the court that they are awaiting expert opinion on 40 exhibits they have sent to forensic science laboratory at Kahilipara here, as a result of which the chargesheet could not be filed yet.

Police, however, told the court that the chargesheet would be filed within the statutory period of 90 days.