By IANS
New Delhi : A total of 60 people were Wednesday awarded life imprisonment in three high-profile and one lesser-known cases across India. They ranged from politician Amarmani Tripathi to policemen in Delhi, Islamic radicals in Tamil Nadu and Hindus charged with killing Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.
In a remarkable coincidence, the judges pronounced the stunning verdicts within hours of one another, ending years of agonizing trials and eventually delivering justice to the family members of those killed in the four cases.
The maximum number of 31 life terms was awarded in Tamil Nadu’s bustling Coimbatore town where a special judge found 31 Islamic radicals guilty for the deaths of 58 people in a string of deadly bomb blasts in 1998.
As Special Judge K. Uthirapathi pronounced the sentences, Syed Ahmed Basha, founder of the militant Islamic outfit Al Umma and the chief accused, raised his voice and called the jail terms “a national shame”.
Besides the 31 who got life imprisonment, four others were awarded varying prison terms, for a maximum of 10 years rigorous punishment. The judge said that the nine years already spent in jail would be taken into account.
The youngest punished with life imprisonment was Mohamed Amajath Ali, 27.
All 31 were charged with responsibility for the blasts that rocked Coimbatore Feb 14, 1998 killing 58 people and injuring more than 250 on a day Advani was to address an election meeting.
The blasts were believed to be a revenge for the killings of 18 Muslims in communal riots in Coimbatore in November 1997 after Al Umma activists knifed to death a policeman.
The most high profile person to get life imprisonment was Amarmani Tripathi, a former Uttar Pradesh minister who was charged with ordering the cold-blooded killing of his pregnant girlfriend, Madhumita Shukla.
A court in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, also gave similar sentences to Tripathi’s wife Madhumani, Tripathi’s cousin Rohit Chaturvedi and a contract killer. The victim was shot dead in Lucknow in May 2003.
According to the prosecution, Madhumita was killed after she refused to abort the child, allegedly fathered by the minister.
In the third case, a senior Delhi Police officer and nine members of his team were sentenced for life for gunning down two innocent businessmen in March 1997 in the heart of the capital after mistaking one of them to be a mobster.
Held guilty were the now suspended assistant commissioner of police Satyaveer Singh Rathi, whose name once spelt terror among criminals for his trigger happy ways. Rathi and his men shot dead businessmen Pradeep Goel and Jagjeet Singh in Connaught Place area and then claimed that they had fired in self-defence.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar, however, dismissed a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to sentence three of them to death. They were constables Mahaveer Singh and Kotharee Ram, who had fired at the businessmen, as well as Rathi, who ordered the firing. Counsel for the guilty sought leniency.
The others who got life imprisonment were inspector Anil Kumar, sub-inspector Ashok Rana, and constables Shiv Kumar, Tejpal Singh, Sumer Singh, Subash Chand and Sunil Kumar.
In the fourth case, a court in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh sentenced 15 Hindu men, including a lawyer, to life imprisonment for burning nine people to death in the wake of the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
This is the first time any court in India has convicted any person for inciting or indulging in the terrible communal riots that followed the mosque demolition.
Additional District Judge S.M. Hasim pronounced the verdict. Four members of a family, including a boy of two and a half years, were among those killed in the slaughter in Kanpur city.
Those held guilty were Pushpendra Yadav, Prem Narayan, Bihari Lal, Ratan Lal, Sri Pal, Krishan Kumar, Amarpal, Rajjan Sacchan, Deependra Sacchan, Naval Kishore, Manoj alias Babblu, Raj Narayan, Rama Shankar and two men both named Raj Kumar.