Court awards six people life term for murder

Kanpur: Additional sessions judge Kanpur Nagar Ashish Kumar Chaurasia on Tuesday sentenced six accused to life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 3.60 lakh on each for committing murder.
The court observed in its order that if the accused failed to pay the fine, he would serve another one year in jail. Out of the fine amount, Rs 1,80,000 be given to complainant Kaptan Singh, the court ordered.
Earlier, on the point of quantum of sentence, the defence counsel had pleaded to award a minimum sentence to the accused as all of them belong to one family and earn their bread and butter from agriculture. On the other hand, the prosecution demanded stringent punishment for the accused.
Those convicted by the court were identified as Raghunath, Ram Nath, Ram Narayan, Rajendra, Ranjeet and Umesh, all residents of Lahorepur village under Maharajpur police station.
According to ADGC Kailash Shukla, a fellow villager in his report lodged at the police station on March 26, 2016 had alleged that his son Shailendra Singh alias Mohit Singh, aged about 22 years, had gone to purchase a pouch of gutkha from Rajendra Singh’s shop at around 6 pm.
The fellow villagers Raghunath, Ram Nath, Narayan, Rajendra, Ranjeet and Umesh, armed with an axe and a lathi, accosted Shailendra at the shop and dragged him to their house. They thrashed and hit him with blows of the axe . Hearing the shrieks of Shailendra he and others rushed to the spot the raiders ran away. Injured Shailendra Singh was taken to the hospital by the complainant where he was declared dead by the doctors, the ADGC stated.
The reason behind the murder was enmity during the gram pradhan election. Raghunath had contested the election of gram pradhan in which the complainant had not only opposed him but also voted against him due to which he suffered defeat.