INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - March 16th - March 31st - 2008
LIFE TERMS FOR ALL FOUR CONVICTS IN SHIVANI BHATNAGAR MURDER CASE
A fast track court has sentenced all four convicts in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, including former Haryana cadre IPS officer R K Sharma, to life imprisonment.
The sentence was pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge R K Shastri.
In his 110-page judgement, additional sessions judge Rajendra Kumar Shastri held there was strong circumstantial evidence, including records of telephone calls, that proved that R K Sharma (54), who held the rank of IG in Haryana when he was suspended by the state government, was the main conspirator and co-convict Pradeep Sharma, a former Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) clerk, was her killer.
Shivani was found murdered in her Navkunj Apartments flat in East Delhi’s Patparganj area on January 23, 1999. The investigation into the case took over three years and the trial commenced in 2003.
The court, however, refused to accept the prosecution theory that the IPS officer plotted Shivani’s murder as she had threatened to expose his alleged involvement in leaking classified documents to her while he was posted in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Accused Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved Prakash, alias Kalu, were, however, acquitted for want of evidence.
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