Life term for Mohammad Shahabuddin

RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin was today sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping a rival politician who is still missing. A local court in north Bihar found him the guilty of the 1999 kidnapping of CPI (M-L) worker Mr. Chote Lal Gupta. Mr Gupta has never been found and police suspect he was murdered.

Shahabuddin is already serving a two-year sentence after being found guilty on 2 March of vandalising a CPI (M-L) office near Siwan and attempting to kidnap party worker Keshav Baitha in 1998. The contoversial MP who represents Siwan in the Lok Sabha, has more than 50 criminal cases against him. He has been in prison in his hometown jail for the past 18 months since his arrest in New Delhi in November 2005.

The security of the Special trial court judge Mr Gyaneshwar Prasad Srivastava has been stepped up following the trial, gave his verdict in a court set up in the Siwan jail where Shahabuddin is lodged.