Mumbai(IANS) : A Mumbai court Friday sentenced Abdul Karim Telgi, the kingpin of the inter-state multi-billion rupee fake stamp papers scam, and four of his associates to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for the murder of his former employee six years ago.
Telgi and Sajid Khan, Makdoom Tarkod, Mohammed Ghouse Shigavi and Kaleem Shamsher were convicted under the Indian Penal Code Sections 304 (II) and 201, relating to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and destruction of evidence. Two other co-accused have been acquitted.
The Sessions Judge U.D. Salvi also ordered Telgi to pay a fine of Rs.300,000 in addition to the jail term, which would not run concurrently with the imprisonment that he is presently undergoing in one of the fake stamp papers cases.
This becomes the fourth case in which Telgi has been convicted of a total 48 filed against him by various investigating agencies. Currently, he is undergoing imprisonment at the Yerawada Jail, Pune, in a fake stamp papers case.
The latest judgement pertains to the killing of employee, Christopher Bhatti, who was working at his fake stamp paper printing press in Chennai and had allegedly misappropriated Rs.300,000. When Telgi learnt of this, he planned to teach Bhatti a lesson.
In August 2001, Bhatti was called to a flat in the posh Cuffe Parade area of south Mumbai and attacked with hockey sticks and beaten to death. His body was later dumped in a car and taken to Shahu Nagar, north-east Mumbai, and thrown in the Mahim Creek. It was later recovered by the police, but they could not identify the body.
The crime came to light during the interrogation of another co-accused in the fake stamp papers case, Uday Sawant, who spilled the beans on Bhatti’s killing.