By IANS
Patna : The Bihar government has decided to ask the Supreme Court to uphold the sentences handed down to those convicted of killing IAS officer G. Krishnaiya if they filed a petition for reprieve.
“The government has made up its mind to approach the Supreme Court, if necessary, to appeal for upholding the sentences in the murder of Krishnaiya,” state Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah said here Monday.
Krishnaiya was Gopalganj district magistrate when he was lynched by a mob led by former MP and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Anand Mohan Singh in 1994.
A Patna court Wednesday sentenced Singh and two others – former MLA and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Akhlaq Ahmed and Arun Kumar, a JD-U leader – to death for their involvement in Krishnaiya’s murder Dec 5, 1994.
The court also sentenced to life imprisonment Singh’s wife Lovely Anand along with Munna Shukla, a JD-U legislator from Lalganj, Shashi Shekhar and Harendra Kumar, both JD-U leaders.
All of them are currently lodged in the high-security Beur jail in Patna.
Lovely Anand filed an appeal in the Patna High Court Friday against the life term given to her.
Sources close to Anand Mohan Singh said he too was likely to file an appeal either in the Patna High Court or the Supreme Court against the death sentence.
Amanullah said the government would try its best to bring the case to its logical conclusion. “The government will counter the petitions of the accused in the apex court,” he said.
Krishnaiya, a 1985 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, was shot at and then stoned by a mob near Khaabra village on National Highway 28 when he was returning to Gopalganj from Hajipur via Muzaffarpur after attending an official meeting.
According to the police, Krishnaiya’s vehicle was intercepted by a mob led by Anand Mohan Singh, then chief of BPP. His wife Lovely Anand, Munna Shukla and Akhlaq Ahmad were also part of the mob, which comprised mainly armed henchmen and supporters of Anand Mohan Singh.
The mob was protesting the killing of former BPP leader Kaushalendra Shukla alias Chhotan Shukla.