Shibu Soren, former minister, gets life term for murder

History was created in India Tuesday when Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Shibu Soren, a cabinet minister until a week ago, was Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1994 murder of his secretary. The victim's family called the verdict a victory for justice they never thought they would get.

For the first time in the country's history, a disgraced cabinet minister in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, an MP and a politician with still a massive following in his home state Jharkhand, has been jailed for murder. The ruling is bound to cast a shadow on both national and state politics.

Delivering Tuesday's stunning verdict was Additional Sessions Judge B.R. Kedia, who Oct 28 held Soren guilty under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 364 (abduction) read with section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, leading to his abrupt resignation from the cabinet and arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The judge also sentenced four other co-accused to life imprisonment besides ordering Soren, 62, to pay a compensation of Rs.500,000 to the two daughters and mother of the dead Shashinath Jha. The other four were fined Rs.25,000 each.

Of this, Rs.200,000 each would go to daughters Kavita and Preeti and Rs.100,000 to Jha's aged mother Priyamvada.

The judgement created a stir in the court complex, where Soren's outnumbered supporters looked stunned before telling journalists that they would appeal in the higher courts. The JMM said Soren would not give up his Lok Sabha seat.

Soren and the others were accused of abducting Jha, who was personal assistant to the JMM chief, from south Delhi's Dhaula Kuan area in 1994 and whose body was discovered in Ranchi days later.

According to CBI, which sought death penalty for all the accused, the dead man had knowledge of the bribe money paid to JMM MPs in 1993 for voting in favour of the then P.V. Narasimha Rao government in parliament. The four MPs, including Soren, faced trial for bribery but were acquitted.

"We never thought anything would happen to this man," Jha's younger daughter Preeti told journalists Tuesday. "He was such a powerful man, he was a minister. We of course prayed for death penalty but life imprisonment is fine by us."

Preeti went on to say how she had repeatedly asked Soren and his family about the whereabouts of his father and how one day, just before Diwali in 1994, the JMM leader told her in a condescending manner that "your father has gone up" - meaning he had met his death. She was only a child then.

Preeti said: "He said this while offering us Diwali sweets. The next moment I threw away the sweets and said that I would go to CBI to get justice. And then he said: 'I am myself CBI, what will CBI do to me?'"

Other members of the Jha family, including Jha's 86-year-old mother, said they would continue to plead for capital punishment for Soren if he went in appeal to the higher courts.

Soren's supporters immediately took to the streets in Ranchi shouting slogans hailing the man. Some alleged a conspiracy against the tribal leader who played a key role in carving out Jharkhand from Bihar in 2000. Others said he began as a "good man" but got corrupted as he climbed the ladder of politics.

The CBI filed a chargesheet against Soren and others in the murder case in 1998. Six years later, Soren joined the Manmohan Singh government as coal minister.

He resigned very soon after an arrest warrant was issued against him for his alleged involvement in a mass killing in Jharkhand. In March 2005 he became the chief minister of Jharkhand but resigned after failing to prove his legislative majority.

In January 2006 he was re-inducted into the cabinet as coal minister. But the CBI doggedly pursued the case and, contrary to widespread impression that Soren would get away with the crime, nailed him in the court.

The founder of JMM, Soren was born into a Santhal school teacher's family in Hazaribagh district of Bihar in 1944. He first entered parliament in 1980 when he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Dumka. He was widely called as "guruji".

(IANS)

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