Mohali, July 7 -- Four years after an 18-year-old labourer from Uttar Pradesh was lured, intoxicated and sexually assaulted before being brutally murdered, his 20-year-old friend has been awarded life imprisonment. Sessions judge Atul Kasana convicted Rahul Kumar, a native of Muzaffarpur, Uttar Pradesh, who was living in Niholka village of Mohali district, under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code in FIR registered at Kurali police station on April 7, 2022. According to the prosecution, the victim, Sonu, a resident of Kurali, had left home around 8 pm on March 31, 2022, after Rahul called him. His mobile phone was switched off around midnight. His family made several attempts to reach home but he neither picked up the phone nor returned home. Worried, the family lodged a missing report on April 2. Investigators later established that Rahul first took Sonu to the Cheema brick kiln at Manakpur Sharif, where they attended the condolence ceremony of a relative. The two then consumed liquor before Rahul switched Sonu's phone to airplane mode and concealed his own phone beneath some bricks to prevent investigators from tracking their movements. They later travelled to Niholka village and then reached a tubewell room at Chintgarh, where they continued drinking. Police said Rahul had a financial dispute with Sonu and used the opportunity to execute his plan. After Sonu became heavily intoxicated, Rahul sexually assaulted him before tying his mouth and killing him inside the tubewell room. Blood spilled on the floor during the assault, and Rahul attempted to clean the spot before locking the room and leaving. The prosecution said Rahul returned the following night, stuffed the body into two fertiliser bags, tied them to a bicycle with a rope and transported it to the cremation ground at Chintgarh. He removed the body from the bags, covered it with crop stubble and discarded the bags elsewhere in an attempt to eliminate evidence. Village residents discovered the body on April 4 and informed police. Sonu's family later identified the body at civil hospital, Ropar. Police arrested Rahul on April 8. During interrogation, he led investigators to Sonu's phone, slippers, as well as the bicycle and rope allegedly used to transport the body. The victim's brother identified the recovered phone and slippers. Investigators also found blood-stained soil, hair and other biological evidence at the tubewell room and the cremation ground. Forensic examination confirmed that blood found at the crime scene and on the accused's clothes matched that of the deceased. Call detail records and mobile tower locations further established that Rahul and Sonu remained together until the victim's phone became inactive around midnight on March 31. The prosecution also relied on the testimony of a witness who told the court that he had seen Rahul pushing a bicycle carrying a heavy sack on the night of April 1, lending support to the allegation that the accused transported the victim's body to the cremation ground. Rejecting the defence's claim that Sonu had died due to excessive alcohol consumption, the court held that the prosecution had proved every link in the chain of circumstantial evidence beyond reasonable doubt. While the prosecution sought the death penalty, the court ruled that the case did not fall within the "rarest of rare" category. The court sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for life and imposed a fine of Rs.10,000 for murder. It also awarded him two years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.3,000 for destroying evidence. Both sentences will run concurrently....