Hamirpur killings: BJP MLA surrenders in court, sent to jail

KANPUR/JHANSI: BJP MLA Ashok Singh Chandel and four others surrendered in a court in Hamirpur on Monday to serve the life sentence awarded to them in a 22-year-old case in which five members of a family were shot dead in Hamirpur.

The MLA, accompanied by hundreds of supporters, reached the district judge court and surrendered before ADJ II, Anil Shukla.

Later, Chandel and other four accused -- Raghuvir Singh, Ashutosh Singh, Naseem Ahmed and Bhan Singh -- were taken into custody and sent to jail amid heavy police presence. Three other accused — Uttam Singh, Saheb Singh and Pradeep Singh — who had also come to surrender, were arrested by the police and produced in the court after medical examination and sent to jail along with Chandel and the four others.

Prior to the surrender, supporters of the MLA created ruckus and raised slogans at the gates of the court, following which police resorted to mild lathicharge to bring the situation under control.

Confirming the arrest and surrender of the MLA and his supporters, SP Hamirpur, Hemraj Meena said that all the accused have been sent to jail. On the question of defilement of Section 144, he said, “We cannot stop the litigants from entering the court premises. However, we tried our best to stop the supporters from entering the court premises and the crowd was stopped at the main gate of the court building.”

According to the case file, all the accused were acquitted on July 15, 2002, by the additional district and sessions judge, Hamirpur, on the ground that the testimony of witnesses was doubtful.

The Allahabad High Court , however, set aside the lower court order on April 19, 2019, and awarded life term to Chandel and eight others.

Additional advocate general Krishna Pahal said: “While hearing the appeal filed by the government, a division bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh had sentenced Chandel and eight others to life imprisonment. Chandel and others were not present in the court when the judgment was pronounced and as they were out on bail.”

On January 26, 1997, a minor altercation between BJP leader Rajive Shukla and Chandel led to a gruesome shootout in Hamirpur in which five persons, including Shukla’s two elder brothers Rakesh and Rajesh, nine-year-old nephew Ambujh and Ved Nayak and Srikant Pandey had died. Five more persons, including two children, had sustained bullet injuries in the shootout.

Chandel, a four-term MLA who had been BSP MP once and his associates were booked in the case.