PATNA, May 8: An Indian court on Tuesday jailed for life a federal MP over the abduction and disappearance of a political activist in 1999.
District Judge Gyaneshwar Prasad Srivastava pronounced the verdict on four-time federal MP Mohammed Shahabuddin, from Siwan, soon after the court convened in Patna, capital of Bihar state.
Shahabuddin — a member of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal party, was also fined 10,000 rupees.
He was accused of involvement in the abduction and subsequent disappearance of Communist Party of India (Marxist) worker Chhote Lal Gupta eight years ago.
The influential MP’s supporters said an appeal would be made to a higher court.
Ajay Kumar, a close aide of Shahabuddin, also ruled out the MP’s resignation from the New Delhi parliament.
“Shahabuddin will not resign. He will move to the Patna High Court in an appeal against the sentence, and he has sent us a message in this regard,” Kumar was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India. The MP was arrested in November 2005 and has at least 30 criminal cases of abduction, extortion and intimidation pending against him, according to media reports.
It was also Shahabuddin’s second recent conviction. The lawmaker was given a two-year sentence in March for the kidnapping of another communist activist, Keshav Baitha, in 1998.
—AFP
