Five Uttar Pradesh cops get life term for fake shootout

LUCKNOW - A court in Uttar Pradesh Monday sentenced five policemen to life imprisonment after convicting them of killing two young men from Jharkhand in a fake shootout after terming them criminals, a court official said.

The court reserved its judgment against nine other policemen accused in the case, while two are absconding.

Additional Sessions Judge, fast track court, A.K. Dwivedi sentenced five policemen, including a sub-inspector, while reserving the order against the nine other policemen, prosecution lawyer Vikas Shakya told IANS on telephone from Sonbhadra, some 250 km from Lucknow.

“The policemen Sep 2003, killed the two youth - Prabhat Kumar Srivastava and Rama Shankar Sahu - who were residents of Jharkhand, after falsely branding them as criminals,” he said.

“Srivastava and Sahu were going by the same train to meet some of their relatives. Both had alighted at Sonbhadra railway station, where policemen from the Pipri police station picked them, branded them criminals and later killed them,” he added.

A magisterial inquiry into the shooting found discrepancies and the case was transferred to the Crime Branch’s Criminal Investigation Department. In 2006, following the investigations, a case was registered against 16 policemen, of which two never turned up for trial and were declared absconders.