After a prolonged trail, liquor baron D P Yadav along with three others was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here for murdering Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of legislative Assembly (MLA) Mahendra Singh Bhati in 1992.
Yadav, who had surrendered on Monday before the special CBI judge Amit Kumar Sirohi , was immediately sent to a jail. Bhati and his close friend Udai Prakash Arya were gunned down at Dadri Railway crossing in 1992 by assailants. Bhati was an MLA from Dadri constituency in Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh.
Though the CBI had submitted the chargesheet against eight persons in the murder case, four of them died during the long trial proceedings.
Yadav's son Vikas is already serving 25 years sentence in the murder of businessman Nitish Katara in 2002.
All the four accused, D P Yadav, Karan Yadav and Praneet Bhatti and Pal Singh have been convicted under various sections including 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The case was transferred to CBI in Dehradun on the orders of the Supreme Court after doubts were being raised about the fair trail in Uttar Pradesh where Yadav is considered to be a highly influential leader.
