New Delhi: Bihar legislator Manoj Manzil was sentenced to life Tuesday in an eight-year-old murder case.
Additional District Judge of the Arrah MP-MLA Court, Santeendra Singh convicted and sentenced 23 more people, and gave life to 22 of them, apart from Manzil. One accused died in the course of the trial.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on the CPI(ML) MLA.
Manzil, who was immediately taken into custody, risks losing his MLAship following the judgment.
All accused were convicted for the 2015 murder of one Jai Prakash Singh, a resident of Badgaon in Arrah. He was beaten to death and his body thrown in a canal outside the village.
Later, Singh’s son Chandan Kumar filed a case of murder against 24 people, including Manoj Manzil.
The murder was apparently in retaliation for the killing of CPI(ML) leader, Satish Yadav who was shot dead on 20 August, 2015 in Azimabad, Arrah.
In the 2020 elections, Manzil was elected an MLA for the first time from the Agiyanv seat in Arrah, defeating JDU’s Prabhunath Prasad by 48,550 votes. He was in the news for his ‘School Par Sadak Aandolan’ against the poor education system of Bihar.
After his sentencing Tuesday, CPI(ML) state media in-charge Kumar Parvez said this was the “handiwork of the BJP”.
“The BJP does not want anyone to raise the voice of Dalits, backward classes and labourers. This is a completely wrong decision. Manoj Manzil has nothing to do with that matter. The government is doing this to scare us. We will go to the high court against this. He is innocent. His only mistake is that he raises the voice of the poor,” he claimed.
Incidentally, the BJP has come back to power in Bihar after its former ally, JD(U) president and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar returned to its fold, and proved the coalition’s majority in the assembly.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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