A Gorakhpur court has given life imprisonment sentence to the prime accused in a 2007 murder that triggered communal violence in the area. Prime accused Mohammad Shameem (39), who remained absconding for 16 years after jumping bail, was arrested last month. According to the prosecution, the case dates back to January 26, 2007 when Raj Kumar Agrahari and two others, who were returning from a wedding function were attacked by a group of people near a mosque in the Kotwali area of Gorakhpur. “Without any provocation, the accused attacked them with a sharp-edged weapon, in which Raj Kumar suffered serious injuries. The situation came under control when others intervened. Raj Kumar was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries the next morning. As the news of his death spread, communal violence broke out in Gorakhpur and some adjoining districts,” the prosecution said. Based on the complaint of the victim’s father Rajendra Prasad Agrahari, a murder case was registered against nine persons at the Gorakhpur Kotwali. Police arrested Shameem and his father Shafiullah, while some of the accused named in the FIR were declared juvenile, said the prosecuting officer. Government Counsel (Gorakhpur) Pramod Kumar Maurya said the court in 2012 sentenced Shafiullah to life imprisonment in the case. Shameem, who was out on bail had gone missing. Gorakhpur police arrested him in September and he was sent to jail. Maurya said, “After examining 10 prosecution witnesses, the court on Tuesday sentenced Shameem to life imprisonment in the murder case of Raj Kumar Agrihari.” In 2008, an FIR was lodged by Parvez Parwaz at the Cantonment police station in Gorakhpur in which he accused the then Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath and a few others of inciting communal violence. In 2017, the state government refused sanction to prosecute Adityanath, saying the video evidence (CD) sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in October 2014 was “tampered” with. Following this, the Allahabad High Court dismissed the plea on February 22, 2018. Advocate Fuzzail Ayyubi, appearing for Parwaz, had contended that the High Court had not gone into the question of “whether the state can pass an order under Section 196 CrPC in respect of a proposed accused in a criminal case who, in the meantime, gets elected as the Chief Minister and is the Executive Head as per the scheme provided under Article 163”. On August 24 last year, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal challenging the High Court judgment while upholding the UP government’s refusal to allow sanction to prosecute Adityanath.
