— Photo: PTI

"NOT A RAREST CASE": Babloo Srivastava coming out of a Delhi court on Monday.

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday sentenced underworld don Babloo Srivastava and his co-accused businessman Nitin Shah to life imprisonment. They were held guilty of entering into a conspiracy to eliminate the Shah's employee, Lalit Kumar Suneja, at Shakarpur in East Delhi in August 1992 following a payment dispute.

The two had hired contract killers, Virender Pant and Manish Dixit, to eliminate Suneja, Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar said. As the case did not appear to be the rarest of rare cases, the two were sentenced to imprisonment for life and imposed a fine of Rs. 20,000 each.

The contract killers whom Srivastava hired for Rs. 1 lakh at the instance of Shah died during the trial. While Virender Pant died of tuberculosis, Manish Dixit was killed in a police encounter. As for the third accused, Manjit Singh, the court acquitted him for want of evidence.

Charge sheet

In the charge sheet, the police said Shah requested Srivastava to eliminate Suneja offering to bear the costs involved in carrying out the act. On August 2, 1992, Pant took Dixit to the spot on a motorcycle, while Manjit Singh waited for them in a car at Yamuna Pusta near Bank Enclave, the charge sheet said.

Dixit shot dead Suneja near his house when he was on his way back home after offering pooja.

The investigating agency got a clue when it came across a complaint registered by Suneja at the Nizamuddin police station here accusing Shah of threatening him. He had also alleged that Srivastava had threatened him over telephone asking him to settle the financial dispute with Shah.

The police had mentioned the names of Srivastava, Shah and Singh under column 2 in the charge sheet meant for accused not sent up for trial. However, they later chargesheeted them under Sec. 302 (murder) and 120 (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC on a direction by the trial court.

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