Duo get life term for murder of scribe

Additional Sessions Judge Mahtab Ahmed also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 each on Ram Niranjan alias "Raja Kolandar" and his brother-in-law Vakshraj Kol yesterday.

The duo are behind the bars for last 12 years in connection with the murder of Dhirendra Singh, a reporter for a Hindi daily.

Kolandar had shot dead Singh at a farmhouse on the city outskirts before severing the scribe's head and dumping it, with the help of his brother-in-law Vakshraj Kol, at a pond in Rewa district of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh.

Call details of the slain reporter's mobile phone led police to Kolander who confessed to the killing, saying he had become wary of Singh who had come to know about his involvement in a number of criminal activities, including murder and loot, and had threatened to expose him.

During investigation, police exhumed human skeletons from the farmhouse and claimed that it indicated Kolander had killed more than a dozen people and dumped their bodies after performing some sort of sorcery which involved cannibalism.

However, the claim was denied by Kolander's family members.

The court observed that while it was proved beyond doubt that Kolander and his brother-in-law had murdered Dhirendra Singh, the prosecution had failed to establish their involvement in any other killings as well as the charges of cannibalism.

As a result, the court refused to treat the case as "rarest of rare" and sent the duo to life imprisonment.