Five Uttar Pradesh Policemen Sentenced To Life Imprisonment For Fake Encounter Killing 16 Years Ago
CBI court of Ghaziabad convicted nine Uttar Pradesh police officers for the killing of a carpenter in Etah in a fake encounter.
Five convicts, including the then Sidhpura police station house officer (SHO) Pawan Singh, Pal Singh Thenwa, Rajendra Prasad, Sarnam Singh and Mohkam Singh, were sentenced to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 30,000.
Four others, Baldev Prasad, Sumer Singh, Ajay Kumar and Awadhesh Rawat, were sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 11,000 each for deliberately destroying evidence under IPC Section 34.?
Carpenter killed in encounter?
They were found guilty in the murder of Rajaram Sharma, a 32-year-old carpenter from Sunehra village, who was killed on August 18, 2006.
According to the police version, Sharma was a dacoit who was involved in looting and was killed in an encounter.
But according to Sharma's family, he had no criminal history and fake cases were filed against him by the cops.
Killed for demanding wages
The family said he had a dispute with constable Rajendra Prasad over unpaid dues for some work he had done at his home.
When Sharma insisted on getting his wages, the constable and his colleagues hatched a conspiracy to implicate him in fake cases.
On August 18, 2006, the cops prepared a fake seizure memo on him and also made counterfeit entries to the general diary.
Picked up by police, never to return
On the evening of August 18, when Sharma, his wife and brothers were on their way to see his ailing sister, he was picked up by six cops.
The next day when his brother Ashok Sharma went to the Police station looking for him, he was told that Rajaram was already released.
But he never came home; days later, the family came to know from news reports that an unidentified person was killed in an encounter.
The cops did not even allow the family to perform Sharma's last rites and cremated the body after declaring him 'unidentified'.
A CBI investigation into the killing was launched in 2007 based on a complaint filed by Sharma's wife, Santosh Kumari.
What the CBI found
During the investigation, the CBI found no cases filed against Sharma before August 18 and fake entries in the general diary.
The forensic examination also found that Sharma was shot from close range.
One of the accused cops, the Sub Inspector, died during the investigation and the SHO has since retired from service.
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