The controversial crime-tainted RJD leader from Siwan, Mohammed Shahabuddin, who faces an entire law book of cases against him, has another to contend with. The Bihar police have filed an FIR against him for taking a selfie of his clean-shaven self himself in his prison cell in the first week of this month.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its judgement on the question of finding him new accommodation in a prison outside Bihar, where petitioners think he is rather too comfortable.
Among the 36 cases of murder and kidnapping against him, Shahabuddin is accused of involvement in the murder of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan after the latter wrote a story on the ex-RJD MP having a hit list of 23 people in which Ranjan himself stood at number 7.
Ranjan was shot dead at a fruit market near the Siwan railway station in May last year. The police apprehended five people in connection with the murder with alleged links with the ex- RJD MP.
Shahabuddin is presently lodged in the Siwan prison, serving a life term he was given in 2014 for the killing of an eye-witness to a murder. The eye-witness named Rajiv was slain before he could depose against Shahabuddin for the murder of his two brothers in an acid attack in 2004.
While the Bihar police investigate these and other cases under duress from the Supreme Court, petitioners have been pleading for his transfer to a prison beyond the borders of Bihar, where he is alleged to be cosy with the ruling establishment.
Petitioners have also been asking for legal proceedings against RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s son and Bihar health minister Tej Pratap Yadav, who was photographed in the company of one of the shooters in the Ranjan killing when Shahabuddin was briefly released on parole late last year. The son of Lalu Prasad was pictured receiving a bouquet from the alleged gunman Mohammed Kaif. That photo, like the Shahabuddin selfie, went viral on social media.
In the Supreme Court on Tuesday, justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy said the plea for an FIR against Tej Pratap Yadav would be dealt with separately.