Amarmani appears in Maharajganj court

Gorakhpur, Nov 14 (UNI) Former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi -- slapped with life imprisonment in the sensational Madhumita murder case -- today appeared before the Maharajganj Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in connection with four other cases lodged against him.

Amarmani, his wife Madhumani, nephew Rohit Chaturvedi and an acquaintance Santosh Royi had been handed down life terms by a special court in Dehra Dun for the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla. The court had also imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on them.

His advocate Ajit Kumar Srivastava submitted an application before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Radhey Shyam seeking Amarmani's transfer from Roshanabad district prison in Uttarakhand to Gorakhpur district jail, following hardships being faced while commuting.

The court fixed November 27 as the next hearing of the case.

Meanwhile, owing to security reasons, Gorakhpur acting DM Ram Murti Ram gave a green signal for his transfer to Varanasi Jail on the request of a Gorakhpur district prison guard.

Madhumita, (26), was found dead at her Lucknow flat on May 9, 2003. She was killed at the behest of Madhumani, who was opposed to Madhumita's alleged affair with her husband.

A post-mortem examination report revealed that Madhumita was pregnant at the time of her death. The murder case hit the headlines, as Amarmani was a powerful and influential political leader in the state.

Amarmani began his career as a bodyguard of one of Uttar Pradesh's underworld dons and later took to politics and became a minister in successive regimes. He had a number of criminal cases pending against him even when he was first made minister in the 1990s. He had also amassed huge properties along the Indo-Nepal border in Maharajganj district.

While he entered politics as a Congressman, he switched sides at the drop of the hat. From the Congress, he broke away to join the Loktantrik Congress Party and became minister in a coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Subsequently, he joined the Bahujan Samaj Party, but managed to get a Samajwadi Party ticket, when Mayawati decided to dump him over his involvement in Madhumita's murder.

UNI