In yet another blow to jailed RJD MP Mohammed Shahabuddin, a special court on Saturday sentenced him to three years rigorous imprisonment in a case of keeping stolen vehicle but acquitted him for lack of evidence for alleged kidnapping of a former MLA.
Shahabuddin was convicted of keeping a motorcycle, looted from one Shubh Narayan Prasad, at his house at Pratappur village. The vehicle was recovered during a raid ordered by the then district magistrate of Siwan CK Anil on April 24, 2005.
Special judge VV Gupta held the Siwan MP guilty under section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and 41 (assisting in concealment of stolen property) of Indian Penal Code.
The prosecution could, however, not establish charges under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of IPC against Shahabuddin.
Giving some relief to the controversial RJD MP, the court acquitted him in the case of alleged kidnapping of former Congress MLA from Balia in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh Viren Pandey in 1990 for want of evidence.
While all the four witnesses in the case had turned hostile during the trial, the informant Viren Pandey himself never turned up in the court to press the charges for Shahabuddin's conviction.
{{/usCountry}}While all the four witnesses in the case had turned hostile during the trial, the informant Viren Pandey himself never turned up in the court to press the charges for Shahabuddin's conviction.
{{/usCountry}}The FIR in the case was filed on September 3, 1990, in which Pandey, who was then chairman of Pachrukhi distillery, alleged that Shahabuddin and his associates Rustam Khan and Munni Lal had kidnapped him for extortion. Lal had died during pendency of the trial.