A day after the Supreme Court upheld the life sentence awarded to former MP Anand Mohan Singh for in the 1994 murder case of Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah, a pall of gloom descended on Panchchgachia, his native village in Bihar's Sharsa district. For the villagers, the guilty MP is the messiah of Panchchgachia -- Robinhood, as they would like to put it.
"The villagers were awaiting the Supreme Court verdict with a hope that Anand Mohan, the son of the soil, will get relief," Mahender Prasad Singh, a villager said.
Another villager Hari Singh added that the villagers were disappointed by the apex court verdict. "We expected some good news but alas. We had planned for a celebration in the village," he said.
Singh said that people of Panchchgachia and the neighbouring villages had organised a prayer for his release. "The entire village is upset for Anand Mohan is our hero."
Santosh Kumar, a youth of the village said that the apex court verdict had put an end to their last hope. "We all know that Anand Mohan is innocent and was framed in the case under a conspiracy."
In 2007,the Patna high court awarded Anand Mohan a death sentence. The court pronounced the verdict thirteen years after a mob led by the husband-wife duo of Anand Mohan and Lovely Anand shot at and then stoned to death Krishnaiah, the Gopalganj district magistrate, on a national highway near Muzaffarpur.
Later, the court converted the death sentence awarded to him into a life term.
Anand
Mohan is languishing in Saharsa district jail for the last five years.
Krishnaiah, a 1985 batch Indian Administrative Service officer, was killed near Khaabra village on the National Highway 28 on December 5, 1994 when he was returning to Gopalganj from Hajipur via Muzaffarpur after attending an official meeting.
The police said Krishnaiah's vehicle was intercepted by a mob led by Anand Mohan, the then chief of the Bihar People's Party. His wife Lovely Anand was also a part of the mob, which comprised mainly armed henchmen and supporters of Anand Mohan.
The mob was protesting the killing of former BPP leader Kaushalendra Shukla alias Chutan Shukla.
Anand Mohan is facing several criminal cases, including those related to murder, attempt to murder, extortion and abduction in various courts. He name has also cropped up in terror-related cases in the Saharsa-Supaul belt.
He formed the Krantikari Samajwadi Sena in 1980 but lost the Lok Sabha election that year. He became a Janata Dal legislator in 1990.
The next year, he was accused of killing an independent candidate from Madhepura. He formed the BPP in 1993, but failed to win from any of the three Assembly seats he contested in 1995.
He entered the Lok Sabha in 1996 from Sheohar.