The Patna High Court on Wednesday upheld the life imprisonment of dreaded gangster and former RJD MP Mohammed Shahabuddin in a 2004 double murder case. This was a result of the bench of Justice KK Mandal and Justice Sanjay Kumar refusing to interfere into the matter and as a result upholding the special Siwan court’s order of 11th December 2015. Apart from Shahabuddin, three other accused named Rajkumar Sah, Sheikh Aslam and Arif Hussain were also convicted.
Shahabuddin is currently lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar jail after the Bihar government was instructed to do so by the Supreme Court, to ensure free and fair trial of his cases. This order was given as a result of a petition filed by wife of slain journalist Rajdeo Ranjan, and Chanda Babu.
This double murder case dates back to 16th August 2004 when Satish Raj and Girish Raj, sons of Siwan businessman Chandrakeshwar Prasad, Kalawati Devi, were abducted and brutally killed after being drenched in acid and later getting shot dead. The 3rd brother named Rajiv Roshan who had also been abducted, somehow managed to escape. But he being the sole eye-witness of the case was shot dead on June 16, 2014, three days before he was to appear in the court.
The reported motive behind the murder was that Shahabuddin was eyeing the deceased’s property and they in-turn had resisted. This had resulted in the abduction of the three brothers by Raj Kumar Sah, a close aide of Shahabuddin.
As a result of the crime, the accused were charged under sections 302 rfor murder, 364A for kidnapping for ransom, 201 for causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender and 120B regarding criminal conspiracy.
The lawyer of Shahabuddin had in his client’s defence that his name was only added to the initial FIR about 5 years after its filing and claimed that they would now move to the Supreme Court to appeal against the decision. Shahabuddin currently is facing trial in about 40 cases.