BHOPAL: Two men accused of murdering a Bhartiya Janshakti Party leader in 2008 were shot at and critically injured inside a courtroom in Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday.
The incident happened when the two under-trials, identified as Gopal Joshi and Santosh Shukla (both lodged at the Indore Central Jail) were produced in the court of additional district and sessions judge Krishna Paraste in Sendhwa town of Barwani district.
The assailant, identified as Suresh alias Baggu Bangad, who was sitting outside the court-room suddenly walked in and shot five rounds from a country-made revolver at the two men. Bangad tried to escape, but the police managed to catch him.
Head constable Than Singh Chouhan, who was present in the courtroom, saw Baggu Bangad rush inside the courtroom and take out the revolver. Chouhan caught hold of Bangad, but the latter still managed to fire five rounds. While two bullets hit the court wall, three hit Gopal Joshi.
He is undergoing treatment and his condition is known to be serious. The other accused, Santosh Shukla, who sustained pellet wounds is out of danger. "A surgery has been performed to remove bullets from injured Joshi. He is being moved to Dhule in Maharashtra for further treatment," said Barwani district superintendent of police Prashant Khare.
Santosh Shukla later told the police that BJP leader of Sendhwa town, Sanjay Yadav and his brother Jeetu Yadav, were behind the firing incident. The Bhartiya Janshakti Party leader Sanjay Jhanwar, who was shot dead in 2008, was a close aide of Yadav.
Baggu Bangad, a resident of Sendhwa is an auto-rickshaw driver. He was seen talking to Joshi and Shukla during the earlier hearings of the case. Shukla alleged before the police that Bangad was hired by Yadav and aides to kill them.
"Bangad who is accused in cases of crime, including criminal assault in the past has been booked under Sections 307 of IPC for attempted murder. Investigations are underway to figure out the possible role of Sanjay Yadav and aides in the attempted killing," said SP Barwani.
The 2008 killing of Sanjay Jhanwar was in retaliation for the 2007 killing of Gopal Joshi's brother Nitin alias Tillu Joshi. The BJP leader Sanjay Yadav, who has a criminal background, is an accused in the 2007 killing of Tillu Joshi.
Importantly, the UP police's special task force (UPSTF) has found links between BJP leader Sanjay Yadav and some contract killers when it arrested eight men in Allahabad last month.
The plot to kill Sanjay Jhanwar was hatched by criminals lodged in three jails of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Javed lodged in Mau district jail in East UP and Jitendra alias Munna Singh lodged in Bijnor Jail of West UP to avenge the 2007 killing of Gopal Joshi's brother Nitin Joshi.
Eight men, including Gopal Joshi's cousin Anup Sharma and four contract killers, who were on way to Sendhwa-Barwani in MP to execute Yadav's order were intercepted and arrested in Allahabad by a UPSTF team.
The Thursday's firing incident in the ADJ Sendhwa courtroom is the second case of an attack on under-trial in court premises in Madhya Pradesh. Earlier on August 4, a former BJP minority cell leader Ikhlaq Qureshi was shot dead by two men inside the Chhindwara district court premises, while being produced in Shiv Sena leader Narendra Patel's attempted murder case.