India, Sept. 18 -- A court in Odisha's Gajapati on Thursday sentenced 12 men to life imprisonment for murdering a father and his son after a village council accused them of practising witchcraft in 2021, calling them cold-blooded and premeditated murders.

Additional Sessions Judge Hara Prasad Pattanaik said the convicts had a deliberate intention to kill the victims because they believed the victims indulged in witchcraft. "The measure of comeuppance in a case of murderous assault of this nature must depend upon the conduct of the convicts, the manner of perpetration of the crime, motive behind the crime and gravity of the criminal act," the court said.

Luka Dalabehera and his son Anuka Dalabehera were killed in Muthaguda village of Gaj...