M A I N   N E W S

Shahabuddin gets 2-year jail
Ambarish Dutta
Tribune News Service

Patna, March 2
The special trial court in Siwan today awarded two-year rigorous imprisonment to the controversial RJD MP Mohd. Shahabuddin for leading the attack on the Khurwabad party office of the CPM in Siwan and subsequently assaulting the office secretary Keshab Baitha in 1998.

Judicial Magistrate Vishwa Vibhuti Gupta found the controversial MP guilty of the charges after the completion of the trial inside the Siwan jail.

The court had already convicted Shahabuddin yesterday itself and kept the pronouncement of the verdict on hold till today.

It is the first time that Shahabuddin has been convicted in a criminal case.

Facing over 34 criminal cases, Shahabuddin, once known as the uncrowned king of Siwan, was now lodged in the Siwan jail.

Shahabuddin's counsel A.K. Rajan said he would move the higher court against the trial court verdict.

The conviction was being viewed as a huge blow to Shahabuddin's political ambitions. He was arrested from New Delhi in November, 2005.

The Siwan administration had booked him twice under the Crime Control Act in February, 2005 and again in October, 2005.

The court relied on the eyewitness testimony of Baitha, who said he and Kaushalya Devi, mother of former JNU students union president Chandrashekhar, who was allegedly shot by the MP's henchmen were sitting in the office when Shahabuddin and his henchmen had raided the place in September 1998.

The FIR in the case was filed by Baitha on October 7, 1998.