On 1st October, a Patna court found Janata Dal(U) leader Anand Mohan and six others guilty of murdering the then Gopalganj district magistrate, G. Krishnaiyah, 13 years ago.
The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence on 3rd October.
Besides Mohan, the others convicted are his wife and former Vaishali MP, Lovely Anand, JD(U) legislator Vijay Shukla alias Munna Shukla, former MLA Akhlaq Ahmad, former MP and JD(U) leader Arun Kumar and JD(U) leaders S.S. Thakur and Harendra Kumar.
Additional district and session’s judge (ADJ-1), Ramsreshtha Rai, ruled the accused persons guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 147 (rioting). All of have been remanded to judicial custody and sent to Beur central jail.
“We will challenge the verdict in the higher court. We are not guilty. The truth will come out in higher courts,” said Mohan.
No one from the JD (U), which is now in power in the state, was willing to comment on the convictions.
On December 5, 1994, Krishnaiyah was lynched and shot in the head by a mob carrying the body of Chhotan Shukla, a dreaded don and Bihar Peoples’ Party leader, who had been gunned down in a gang war the previous night near Muzaffarpur.
Krishnaiyah, a native of Andhra Pradesh who was in the IAS’s Bihar cadre, was on way to Gopalganj from Hajipur via Muzaffarpur after attending a meeting.
The frenzied followers of the don, led by Anand Mohan and Lovely Anand, then the Vaishali MP, stopped the IAS officer’s car near Khabra on the outskirts of Muzaffarpur, 60km north of Patna, on National Highway 28.
They dragged out Krishnaiyah, hurled stones at him and thrashed him with batons, farm tools and whatever else they had with them.
As the DM lay on the streets, Chhotan’s younger brother Bhutkun Shukla (another criminal who was later killed in a gangwar) shot him thrice in the head.
The trial of the case was going on in a Muzaffarpur court. But on the instructions of Patna High Court the case was recently transferred to the sessions court in the state capital for speedy trial.
1 comment:
This is an eye opener for all those in Bihar who think themselves above the "LAW". This decision is most welcome & shall be upheld in higher courts as well. I am from Bihar & delighted with this decision. "LAW" shall the rule the land & not people like "LALU" or "MOHAN" etc....
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