A local court on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to eight people, including a ruling JD(U) MLA and a former LJP MP, in the sensational murder case of former Bihar minister Brij Bihari Prasad on June 13, 1998. Another JD(U) MLA was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for harbouring the assailants.
Additional district and sessions judge-III Vijay Prakash Mishra awarded life term to former LJP MP Surajbhan Singh, JD(U) MLA Vijay Kumar Shukla alias Munna Shukla and former independent MLA Rajan Tiwari. JD(U) MLA Shashi Kumar Rai, on whose residential premises the vehicles used by the assailants were found parked, was awarded two years’ imprisonment.
Others awarded life sentence are: Mantu Tiwari, Lallan Singh, Mukesh Singh, Ram Niranjan Chaudhary and Captain Sunil. The eight have also been imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 each.
Brij Bihari, an accused in the engineering admissions scam investigated by CBI, was gunned down while he was strolling in the garden of Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, where he was admitted for treatment under judicial custody. His security guard Lakshmeshwar Sah was also killed.
CBI, which probed the murder case, submitted chargesheet against 17 accused. Three of them were killed in an encounter with Ghaziabad police, two others died natural death while another accused committed suicide in jail in November 2007. Two of the accused — Satish Pandey and Naga Singh — are still absconding.
CBI special public prosecutor Rakesh Kumar examined 62 prosecution witnesses to submit that the accused reached the hospital on a Tata Sumo and an Ambassador car and opened fire to kill Brij Bihari around 8.15 pm. Mantu used a stengun while the other seven assailants used pistols and revolvers. Brij Bihari’s wife Rama Devi, currently BJP MP from Sheohar, was complainant in this case.
As many as 18 prosecution witnesses turned hostile during the trial. The defence counsel cross-examined the prosecution witnesses but did not produce any defence witness. The CBI counsel argued for capital punishment to the convicts, pleading that the killings fell in the category of the rarest of rare cases. However, the court disallowed his plea.link
Wednesday 12 August 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete