RAIGARH: A court in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district on Saturday sentenced a former MLA from Odisha to life imprisonment for the murder of a mother-daughter duo in 2016.
Additional District and Session Judge (V) Kamlesh Jagdalla convicted Anup Sai under Indian Penal Code sections 302 and 120B and also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on him, Public Prosecutor Deepak Sharma said.
"Besides, he was also awarded seven years rigorous imprisonment under section 201 of the IPC along with a fine of Rs 5,000. Both the sentences will run concurrently. In case of non-payment of fine, he would have to undergo an additional imprisonment of six months in both the sentences," Sharma said.
Sai's driver Vardhan Toppo, who was also arrested in the case, was acquitted for lack of evidence, he added.
On May 7, 2016, Raigarh police had recovered disfigured bodies of a woman and a girl from Chankaradharnagar police station area on Raigarh-Odisha road.
They were later identified as Kalpana Das (40) and her daughter Babli Das (14) from Brajrajnagar area in Odiha.
Sai and Toppo were arrested in February, 2020 by Raigarh police and charged under IPC sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of the evidence) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
As per police, Sai was in an illicit relationship with the woman and killed her after she allegedly started blackmailing him.
Sai was a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader at the time and chairman of Odisha State Warehousing.
He represented Brajrajnagar Assembly constituency in Odisha's Sundargarh district three times.
He was with the Congress before joining the BJD in 2014.