Patna: A man in Bihar was held guilty for murder 45 years after he was charged with shooting dead a local villager. The convict in his 60s has been arrested and sent to jail.

The court of Justice MP Singh in Bhagalpur district slammed the officials whose “dilly-dallying” tactics wasted a lot of time in reaching to the final judgement in the case.

“The officials continued throwing the ball in one another’s courts. The result was that neither the post-mortem report nor the report about the seizure of firearm was presented. Now, we can’t wait for more,” the court observed. The murder had taken place in Bhagalpur in April 1974 when the convict was barely 15-year-old.

Additional public prosecutor Mohammad Reyaz Hussain said 28 years were wasted in waiting for the post mortem report which ultimately didn’t come.

“We inquired about the autopsy report from the local hospitals but they feigned ignorance. Ultimately we found out the name of the doctor who had conducted the -mortem but when the officials reached his home, he had died by then,” Hussain said.

“Locating the autopsy report took a lot of time yet we didn’t get it in the end,” Hussain said adding the quantum of punishment would be pronounced on September 25.