Eleven 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 one other person due to gangwar in Bhopal district court premises and sent them to judicial custody.

A division bench comprising Justice Shravan Shankar Jha and Justice Sushma Srivastava quashed an earlier lower court order acquitting the accused in the case.

On July 10, 1996, one witness and one other 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's Additional Sessions Judge Anand Mohan Khare had acquitted all the 12 accused in both the cases on August 9, 1999. In this regard, the state government filed two appeals challenging the acquittal.

State Additional Advocate General Ravishankar Patel told the court that witnesses were threatened and given inducements during hearing in the lower court. As a result, witnesses changed their statements and hearing was 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 on the section 302 of the IPC.

The court fixed April 3 as the next date for deciding the quantum of punishment to 11 accused and sent them to judicial custody.

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

After the ruling, the court asked defence counsels Surendra Singh and Ajay Gupta whether their clients (all the accused) were present in the court.

The defence counsels informed all the accused to remain present in the court but three accused left due to delay in providing police security, while one other left as he had no information. Police took eight accused into custody and sent them to jail.

UNI