November 6, 2003	Thursday	Ramazan 10, 1424

NEW DELHI, Nov 5: A sessions court in northern India handed down life sentences on Wednesday to 10 people, including former Congress leader Mukesh Sharma,

for murdering prominent theatre personality and Marxist leader Safdar Hashmi 14 years ago.

Judge C.D. Rai pronounced the sentences in a crowded sessions court in Ghaziabad town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the Press Trust of India reported.

Mr Hashmi, a leader of the Marxist Communist Party of India, was beaten to death by a mob led by Sharma and his friends while performing a street play called “Halla Bol” (Make a Noise) during municipal elections in Ghaziabad on Jan 1, 1989.

“It is a welcome verdict, though belated,” said Harkishen Singh Surjeet, general secretary of the Marxist Communist Party of India.

“It is good these people have been convicted. But the judgement has come after 14 years,” said the victim’s sister Shabnam Hashmi, who runs the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust for artists in memory of her brother.

“This period could have been spent on working on the minds of twho at that time was just 34 and at the peak of his creativity.” —AFP