Five naxals get life term for supplying firearms to cadres
Five naxals, including a couple, were today sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court for running an illegal manufacturing unit on city fringe, apparently to supply firearms to their cadres.
Besides awarding life term, the Additional District Judge B K Dwivedi also slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on each of the five convicts under various sections of the IPC and Arms Act, by holding them guilty on charges of treason.
The court found Chakka Krishna alias Shekhar, Ramesh Siddhi alias Dange, Thantaiah Yadav alias Satish Patil, Sunitha Patil and her husband Leela alias Diwakar Patil guilty under sections 121 (waging or attempting to wage war against the Government of India), 122 (collecting arms with intention of waging war against the country) 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war) and 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC, section 25(a) of Arms Act, besides sections 4, 5 and 7 of the Explosives Act.
According to prosecution, the then DIG of Bhopal Anuradha Shankar and then SP Anant Kumar Singh were tipped off about the illegal arms factory being run by naxalites in a clandestine manner in Satnami Nagar of Piplani area outside the city, following which it was raided on January 11, 2007.
A few policemen had sustained injuries during the raid as the naxalites resisted their arrest.
A huge cache of arms, tools and machines for making them, explosives, naxalite literature and CDs were recovered by police from the hideout.
During the trial, both the senior police officials (Anuradha and Anant), a few policemen involved in the raid and a computer operator, Shishir Khatri, recorded their statements before the court.
The prosecution demanded capital punishment for the accused but the court awarded them life term.
