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| Former Delhi councillor convicted for murder | | |
NEW DELHI, DEC 21
Former Delhi councillor Sharda Jain was today held guilty along with eight others, including three Uttar Pradesh policemen, for the murder of fellow councillor Atma Ram Gupta four years ago.
The court will hear arguments on the quantum of sentence tomorrow.
Both Jain and Gupta belonged to the Congress.
Additional Sessions Judge Bharat Prashar held Jain guilty of conspiring to kidnap and murder Gupta.
Jain's brother Raj Kumar Jain and four other accused -- Roshan Singh, Rajender alias Raju, Pushpender and Nirvikar -- were also convicted for the same offence.
The three UP policemen -- Assistant Sub-Inspector Sripal Raghav, constables Satender and Rakesh Kumar -- were held guilty of destruction of evidence.
Roshan Singh, Pushpender and Nirvikar were also convicted under Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act.
While convicting all the nine accused, the Judge said "I am of the considered opinion that the prosecution has been successful in proving its case against all the accused persons beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts to the effect that the accused hatched a criminal conspiracy to abduct and murder Gupta".
"It had further been clearly proved on record that in the execution of criminal conspiracy and furtherance of the common object, they all abducted and murdered Gupta," the court said.
While rejecting the plea of innocence of the accused, the court said "the circustantial evidence in the case is absolutely inconsistent and incompatible with the innocence of the accused persons". "...Circumstances formed a chain to complete which leads to the only conclusion that the accused persons who had committed the murder of Gupta after abducting him and later on also disposed of his body with a view to conceal evidence of the said crime," the court said.
Jain, then councillor from Keshavpuram in northwest Delhi, was accused of hatching a conspiracy to murder Gupta, a a senior councillor from Trinagar, as she did not like his intimacy with another party corporator Memwati Barwala.
Gupta, who had gone with Jain on August 24, 2002, to attend a Congress rally at Ferozshah Kotla ground, was later kidnapped and found murdered after five days in a canal in Bulandshar district of Uttar Pradesh.
Prosecution had alleged that Jain took Gupta to Chajjupur village in Ghaziabad district on the pretext of showing a piece of land where he was shot dead by two hired killers, Nirvikar and Pushpender.
The conspiracy was hatched by Jain with her brother Raj Kumar and ex-village head of Chajjupur Roshan Singh and Rajender, a driver who had driven Jain's car while Gupta was abducted, the chargesheet had alleged.
It had stated that the three UP policemen, Sripal Raghav, Satender and Rakesh Kumar, posted around Chajjupur, helped Jain at the instance of Roshan Singh in disposing the body far away from the spot in the canal in Bulandshahar.
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