A city court has awarded life imprisonment to three men for a 2005 homicide. While pronouncing the accused guilty of murder, the court also slapped penalty of Rs50,000 on each of the accused. The judge also ordered one of the accused to cough up an additional Rs10,000 penalty for facing charges under Arms Act. The trial lasted nine long years as prosecution and defence battled it out in court.
Prosecution lawyer Suresh Yadav said the trial was drawn-out because defence attempted to pervert justice by fielding false witnesses. Special Judge Anil Kumar Jha, who heard the case, sentenced the three accused to life after prosecution proved its case.
loni police, in its chargesheet, had stated that the three accused had entered into an altercation with Manoj, a resident of loni town, at a wedding reception in Ram Park Extension. Manoj’s only fault was that he had inadvertently grazed the shoulder of the accused while passing through a narrow lane. The matter was resolved as senior citizens of the area had intervened.But the accused were not satisfied and were bristling with revenge. On December 12, 2005, all the three men reached Ramlila Ground where Manoj (25) was playing cricket with his friends. They caught him by the scruff of his neck and beat him to a pulp. The accused later chased him and gunned him down.
In the police chargesheet, the killers were identified as Umesh Sharma, Ashok Rawat and Parvinder, alias Pintu. On the complaint of Vinod, the brother of the deceased, prosecution contended that Umesh had criminal antecedents. Defence tried to invent a false case and presented a witness named leelu who was proved prejudiced when a FIR against him was found filed by Manoj in an election related case. The prosecution presented 10 witnesses to buttress the charge. The court, after hearing arguments from both sides, pronounced judgement in which all the three accused were awarded life, Suresh Yadav, Additional Government Counsel (Criminal), said.