Anant Singh gets 10-yr RI in second case in a month

Singh sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in another case of recovery of a bullet-proof jacket and gun ammunition from his official residence in the state capital in 2015.

Anant Singh, who was recently disqualified as the member of legislative assembly (MLA) in Bihar days ago following his conviction and sentencing in a 2019 case relating to recovery of AK-47 assault rifle from his home in his native village, was on Thursday sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in another case of recovery of a bullet-proof jacket and gun ammunition from his official residence in the state capital in 2015.

Former RJD MLA Anant Singh. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

Emerging from the special MP-MLA court in Patna after the sentencing on Thursday, Singh told reporters, “I will move the Patna High Court and the Supreme Court against the judgment.”

Singh, who is currently lodged in Patna’s Beur Central jail, has won Mokama assembly seat five times — thrice on the symbol of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United, fourth time as an Independent candidate and fifth time in 2020 as a candidate of Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which is now the main opposition party in Bihar.

According to police, the instant case dates back to June 24, 2015, when the then Patna police chief Vikas Vaibhav raided Singh’s official residence and conducted a search for over four hours and recovered six empty magazines of sophisticated Insas rifle, a bullet-proof jacket and some blood-stained clothes. The raid was in connection with a kidnapping and murder case under Barh police station limits. Four youths were kidnapped on June 17, 2015. The next day, the body of one of them, identified as Putush Yadav, was recovered from Singh’s ancestral village.

Singh’s counsel Sunil Kumar said, “This case is political and my client was implicated in a false case.”

Singh enjoys a strong man image and has a long history sheet of crime.

On June 21, the same court had sentenced him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in the 2019 case of recovery of AK-47 from his home in his native village in rural Patna.