Announcing the verdict in the 1992 Kanpur riot case, in which 11 people were killed, Additional District Judge (VI) S M Haseeb on Wednesday held 15 people guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Of the 24 accused in the case, the judge acquitted nine for the lack of evidence against them. The judgment was announced amidst a heavy deployment of police personnel.Those acquitted include Ram Suchit, Brijesh Kumar, Rajendra Bantee Chauhan, Yogesh Gupta, Lakhan Singh, Rajendra Bajpai, Sanjay Srivastava and Raj Singh. The accused held guilty have been identified as Krishna Kumar Mishra, Bablu alias Manoj Tripathi, Prem Narayan Pandey, Rajjan alias Rajnarayan, Ratan Lal, Ram Shankar Gupta, Amar Pal, Shri Pal, Rajjan Sachan, Dipendra Sachan, Biharilal Gupta, Moni alias Naval Kishore, Pushpendra Yadav, Raj Kumar and Rajkumar.As soon as the judgment came, relatives and acquaintances of the guilty started shouting slogans against the judge and administration. They also protested against the handcuffing of the guilty while being taken to jail.One of the guilty, Pushpendra Yadav, who is an advocate, had mobilised support and some advocates tried to obstruct the working of the court and demanded that Yadav should not be held in handcuffs. However, the heavy police force present on the occasion warded off any untoward incident.Following the demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, Kanpur witnessed communal tension. A group of rioters attacked the house of one Chotte Miyan under the Govind Nagar police station on December 9. The incident led to the killing of 11 people, including Chotte Miyan, his wife Akhtari Begum and son Saddam Hussain. Subsequently, a case was registered against 24 people at the Govind Nagar police station under various sections of the IPC.
