Gupta murder: HC rejects accused’s plea

Besides Vibha Tiwari,the petitions for stay on arrest were moved by Hoshiyar Singh and Manjul Pandey.

The bench,which had reserved its order last Friday,delivered it on Tuesday after perusing Gupta’s case diary.

During the perusal of the diary,the court found that the postmortem report of Gupta showed 23 injuries,including contusions,multiple abraded contusions,lacerated wounds and electrocution marks.

According to the prosecution,Vibha Tiwari wasn’t a housewife but the president of a zila panchayat. Besides the telephonic conversations between her and Singh,other circumstances also suggested that she was giving instructions on how to conceal the evidence.

“It is time that stringent steps are taken for breaking this vicious nexus between the police and the politicians and their goons and for taking strong steps to ensure that investigation becomes fair and honest,” the bench observed.

The High Court said directions to separate law and order and the investigative wings of the police and others related issues to make the process more objective were issued by the Supreme Court in the Prakash Singh and others versus the Union of India.

It directed the registry to send copies of the order within a week to the session judge,chief judicial magistrate and the Auraiya superintendent of police.

Ex-SP legislator surrenders
KANPUR: Former Samajwadi Party MLA Kalmesh Pathak — accused of attacking the police and disrupting law and order situation following the murder of PWD engineer M K Gupta — surrendered in the court of chief judicial magistrate of Auraiya on Tuesday. Pathak was later sent to judicial custody. He will appear before the Auraiya session court on Wednesday for a hearing on his bail petition. In the violence which broke out in the district after Gupta’s murder,the police had also accused Pathak of provoking people for violence,damaging public property and causing disturbance in official work. Defence counsel Anand Dubey said,“The charges levelled against Pathak are baseless.” Meanwhile,the session court quashed the bail petition of Gajraj Singh and Pal Singh,the two gunners of arrested BSP legislator Shekhar Tiwari.