BSP MLA, Shekhar Tiwari gets life imprisonment in PWD engineer murder case

LUCKNOW: A Lucknow special trail court has sentenced BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari to life imprisonment for murdering PWD engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta, after he refused to pay donation for UP Chief Minister Mayawati's birthday celebrations in 2008.

Additional Sessions Judge Virendra Kumar also sentenced nine accomplices of the MLA, including three policemen, to life imprisonment in the case. The legislator’s wife Vibha Tiwari was sentenced to two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on charges of destroying evidence.

Gupta, an executive engineer in Auraiya, was murdered on December 24, 2008, by Tiwari and his henchmen and his body was dumped outside the Dibiyapur police station. The postmortem report revealed that the engineer was beaten up and administered electric shock, which led to the death. Tiwari, an MLA representing Auraiya constituency, had been on a fund-collection drive for the birthday function and pressured the engineer to donate.

The Dibiyapur police station officer Hoshiyar Singh initially tried to term the murder as a fallout of inter-departmental rivalry of PWD engineers. He is among those awarded a life term by the court. The state government tried to shield the MLA but after a public outcry, Mayawati suspended Tiwari from the party and had him arrested. The outrage over the murder led Mayawati, known for her gala birthday celebrations, to say that she would henceforth have low-key celebrations.