By IANS,
New Delhi : A city court Wednesday awarded life term to three for killing a Congress leader in the national capital five years ago.
Additional Sessions Judge S.K. Sarvaria sentenced Sushil Pehalwan, Suresh Pehalwan and Dalip to life imprisonment for killing Surender Gupta and also slapped a fine of Rs.10,000 on each of them.
The court had booked them under Section 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Gupta, 40, who was also a property dealer, was shot at and stabbed near his house in South Extension in 2003. he was rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where he succumbed to his injuries hours later.
The court, however, acquitted another accused, Lekhraj, for want of evidence.
The court had reserved its order Sep 15.
According to the prosecution, the convicts, who were armed, forced Gupta to come out of his car near his house around noon May 31, 2003.
Sushil first fired twice at him and later Suresh stabbed him 16 times, inflicting fatal injuries, the prosecution had said.
Dalip, according to the prosecution, held the victim when he was being stabbed.
The prosecution examined 26 people, including three eye-witnesses.
Two eye witnesses, Om Prakash Gupta and Narpat Singh, turned hostile, while another, Subodh, a former employee of the victim, supported the prosecution’s case.