Setting aside a CBI court order, Patna High Court today released eight police personnel, including one who was awarded death sentence last year, in a case of fake encounter here in which three youths were killed 12 years ago.
A division bench of Justice V N Sinha and Justice Jitendra Mohan Sharma freed the eight accused for want of evidence against them.
The special CBI court had in June last year announced death penalty for former Shashtri Nagar police station house officer Shamse Alam for killing three youths in a fake encounter at Sammelan Market at Ashiana Nagar in December 2002.
Seven other convicts including a deputy superintendent of police were awarded life imprisonment by the same court.
The three youths - Vikas Ranjan, Prashant and Himanshu Yadav - were gunned down on December 28, 2002. The police had initially claimed that the trio were members of a notorious gang and had gone to the market for committing crime.
The HC ordered the state government to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to the families of each of the three youths.
