Mahavir Prasad booked on conspiracy charge in murder case

Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Feb 11 (PTI) A minister in the
Indian government has been booked for alleged conspiracy in a
murder case registered here in India's northern state of Uttar
Pradesh.

The case was lodged against 69-year-old Union Minister
for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Mahavir Prasad, on
the directions of the Allahabad High Court under section 120 B
of Indian Penal Code (conspiracy) in Gagha Police station here
Tuesday night, Senior Superintendent of Police Aditya Mishra
said Wednesday.

Two other accused, village head of Ujjarpar, Rajesh Singh
and Gauri Shankar Gupta, a relative of the Minister, have been
booked under sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance
of evidence of offence or giving false information), 504
(intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of public
peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC and the SC/ST
Act.

According to police, one Subhavati of village Ujjarpar,
the native village of the Minister, had moved a local court
for lodging cases against the accused, alleging that the
village head and Gupta were involved in the murder of her
husband on January 28.

She charged the Minister, a Lok Sabha member and a former
Haryana Governor, with helping the accused. She moved the High
Court after the local CJM's court rejected her plea.

Police said the case was registered on the direction
of the High Court.

Earlier, the police had registered the case as that of
a road accident. No arrest has so far been made in this
connection, the Senior Superintendent of Police said.

"What we plan to do is to carry out fair and
completely impartial investigations so that we can ascertain
whether the facts lead to the case being chargesheeted as a
murder or again as an accident case," Mishra said.

"That is our task ahead in the next few days and I am
sure within 7-10 days we will be able to clear up the
confusion," he said.

Elected to the Lok Sabha first in 1980 from Bansgaon
in Uttar Pradesh, the Scheduled Caste leader became a cabinet
minister in 2004.

In Delhi, Congress Spokesman Manish Tiwari said
"currently, it seems as the Allahabad High Court has passed an
order but we have not seen the order and if an FIR has been
registered, we don't have a copy of the FIR at the moment."

He said after scrutinising the order, the FIR and
talking to the Minister, "we will come to an appropriate
conclusion and respond to it.

"It is inappropriate to come to any conclusion before
scrutinising the documents," Tiwari said. PTI Corr
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