11 convicted for murder in Bhopal court premises

Jabalpur, Mar 30 (UNI) The Madhya Pradesh High Court today convicted 11 persons for the murder of a witness and another person for the 1996 gangwar in Bhopal district court premises.

A Division Bench comprising Justices Shravan Shankar Jha and Sushma Srivastava quashed an earlier lower court order acquitting the accused in the case.

On July 10, 1996, one witness and another person got killed when firearms were used in broad daylight due to gangwar between groups of Mukhtyar Mallik and Mazhar Hussein.

A case was registered against four people of Mukhtyar's group, while another case was registered against eight people of Mazhar's group in connection with the murder.

Bhopal Additional Sessions Judge Anand Mohan Khare had acquitted all the 12 accused in both the cases on August 9, 1999. The state government, however, filed two appeals challenging the acquittal.

State Additional Advocate General Ravishankar Patel told the HC that witnesses were threatened and given inducements during hearings in the lower court. As a result, the witnesses turned hostile and the hearings were affected. He requested quashing of the lower court order.

Accepting the arguments of the government, the court admitted the petition challenging the lower court order and convicted all the accused under Section 302 of the IPC.

The HC fixed April 3 as the next date to decide the quantum of punishment to the eleven accused and sent them to judicial custody.

During the appeal, one member of the Mukhtyar gang had died natural death.

UNI