Amarmani, wife guilty of killing Madhumita-India-The Times of India

Amarmani, wife guilty of killing Madhumita-India-The Times of India
Amarmani, wife guilty of killing Madhumita
25 Oct 2007, 0242 hrs IST,Jaskiran Chopra,TNN

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DEHRADUN: The iron fist of law slammed ex-UP minister and Samajwadi Party MLA Amarmani Tripathi and his vengeful wife Madhumani with life sentences on Wednesday, along with two others who had conspired to kill poet Madhumita Shukla four years ago. Amarmani, an iconic example of politics in UP, where gangsters seek political office to get immunity from crimes, tried every dirty trick to escape the charge of murdering his seven-month-pregnant paramour who refused to abort the love child. The politician tried to implicate an innocent in the murder, and repeatedly sought to subvert justice, before a determined campaign by Madhumita's family led to the case being handed over to CBI and the trial being moved from UP to Uttarakhand. After a year's hearing without let or hindrance, judge V B Rai on Wednesday awarded life terms to Amarmani, Madhumani, their nephew Rohit Chaturvedi and a contract killer, Santosh Rai, and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each of them. Another accused, Prakash Pandey, who had accompanied Rai, was acquitted for lack of evidence. CBI plans to appeal against the acquittal in a higher court. The special court started hearing the case from March 2007 after the Supreme Court had transferred the case from Lucknow to Dehradun. Madhumita's sister, Nidhi Shukla, who had taken the case as a crusade the way Sabrina Lall did for her murdered sister Jessica Lall, moved a petition before the Supreme Court as she feared Amarmani would use his political clout in UP to influence the case. Initially, it appeared CBI would find it hard to pin the murder on Amarmani, the man who started life as a don's bodyguard and rose to become a history-sheeter-turned politician. But a resolute testimony by a servant who identified the killer and the fetus's DNA matching Amarmani's DNA left little doubt about the motive and method of the killer. Tormented and threatened by Amarmani and his gangster aides for refusing to drop the case, Madhumita's mother and sister said they would have preferred the gallows for Amarmani and the killer. "Every breath that Amarmani takes in fresh air means a hundred deaths for me," said Nidhi Shukla, Madhumita's sister. "Had the court given him capital punishment, we would have been happy." Madhumita was found dead at her Lucknow flat on May 9, 2003. She was killed at the behest of Madhumani, who was opposed to Madhumita's affair with her husband. CBI produced 79 witnesses in court during the past six months of the trial. CBI lawyer Baljit Singh gave credit to investigating officer T Raja Balaji.