Patna: A special Siwan court has sentenced former RJD MP and Bihar strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin to life imprisonment for his role in the infamous 2004 acid murder case.
The case, in which two brothers, sons of a Siwan businessman, were drenched in acid, has been called ‘rarest of rare' by the Court.
Special public prosecutor Jayprakash Singh told reporters that the court convicted Shahabuddin, his aides — Sheikh Aslam,
Sheikh Arif alias Monu and Rajkumar Sah — for murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy.
In August 2004, Shahabuddin's supporters allegedly abducted three sons of Chandrakeshwar Prasad alias Chanda Babu, a political opponent of ex-MP, over a dispute on possession of his shops in the main Siwan market.
While his two sons--Girish and Satish were drenched in acid and their bodies were thrown into a brick kiln , his elder son Rajiv Roshan had managed to escape.
The bodies of the two brothers were never recovered. Roshan was the only witness to the gruesome killing and was to appear as a witness in the trial court soon.
Roshan was also killed in June 2014, three days before he was slated to appear in the court to record his statement afresh as an eyewitness after Patna High Court's intervention in the case.
While Siwan police had told the court that Shahabuddin was in jail on the day of the double murder, Roshan had claimed the leader was present at the scene
Shahabuddin's lawyer Abhay Kumar Rajan, however, said they will challenge the order in high court. “We maintain that
Shahabuddin was in jail on day of murder of the two brothers. No jail official has been named. So, how can it be proved that my client was not in jail on day of the murder,” said Rajan.
Soon after the verdict, hundreds of supporters of Shahabuddin started gathering to show support outside the Siwan district jail, where the MP has been in incarceration for seven years.
Sahabuddin, who already stands convicted in about half a dozen other cases, is lodged at the Siwan jail. He allegedly ran a parallel administration n Siwan, which reportedly involved ruling on disputes, deciding fees for services, and handing out “justice”.
