By IANS
Lucknow : As many as 15 Uttar Pradesh policemen were awarded life imprisonment Tuesday for their role in a fake encounter involving a physically challenged person in the state’s Etawah district way back in 1992.
Fifteen years after one Raj Narain Pandit was done to death by a team of policemen on the banks of Chambal river in the Chakar Nagar area of Etawah district on Jan 28, 1992, special sessions judge R.P. Sharma pronounced the verdict in a crowded Etawah court, about 250 km from here.
The court held that Pandit was a physically challenged person without any criminal antecedents. However, his brother was wanted in a number of criminal cases and also carried a reward of Rs.5,000 on his head.
Terming Pandit too as a “hardened criminal”, the police had on record shown that he committed suicide by jumping into the Chambal river.
Later, a probe was ordered into the case. On Sep 10, 1993, the state’s crime branch and the crime investigation department filed a charge sheet against 15 policemen including the then station house officer (SHO) of Chakar Nagar police station.
After a trial lasting nearly a decade and a half, the special sessions judge pronounced life imprisonment for the then Chakar Nagar SHO Girivar Giri, sub-inspectors J.N. Singh, Shaligram Yadav and constables Santosh, Ram Prakash, Brajpal Singh, Surya Dev, Jitendra Prasad Yadav, Ram Khilari, Brijesh Kumar, Brajmohan, Yatendra Bihari Lal, Jai Prakash Deewan Singh, Ashok Kumar and Balveer Singh.
A penalty of Rs.5,000 was also slapped on each cop.