Raining convictions; ex-MLC is the latest

NEW DELHI: Former Delhi councillor Sharda Jain was on Thursday held guilty 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 on Friday.

The sensational murder case had rocked the city’s political circles. In a tale of romance, revenge and murder, Jain, then councillor from Keshavpuram in northwest Delhi, was accused of hatching a conspiracy to murder Gupta, a senior councillor from Trinagar, as she did not like his intimacy with another party corporator Ms 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 dead five days later in a canal in Bulandshar, UP.

The 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. Following the incident, the Congress had expelled the two lady councillors from the party.

On Thursday, 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 a shadow of all reasonable doubt 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.”