A court in Jalpaiguri on Monday sentenced four youths to life imprisonment for murdering their friend around nine years ago.

The convicts are Bhaichung Sherpa, Nitesh Sharma, Dawa Tamang and Vivek Pradhan. Dawa is a resident of Pradhannagar in Siliguri and the other three are from Gangtok.

The trio from Sikkim, along with their friend Siddharth Gurung, had reached Siliguri in August 2012. Dawa joined them and all the five then reached the New Jalpaiguri area and checked into a hotel. On the second day, they shifted to another hotel.

“On August 22, 2012, the quartet who has been convicted of the murder, checked out of the hotel. They told the manager and other staff members that Siddharth was sleeping in the room and they should wake him up in the afternoon. The staff went and called Siddharth, but he didn’t respond. The employees called up police who found that Siddharth had been strangled,” said a source.

The police soon arrested all the four. During interrogation, they admitted that they had killed Siddharth to grab his cellphone, laptop and cash. Government lawyer Subrata Sarkar said the additional district and sessions first court had conducted the trial.

“In total, 21 witnesses deposed in the case. The court awarded the death sentence today,” he said.