Raja Man Singh death case: Mathura court gives life imprisonment to 11 cops

The Mathura court has given life imprisonment to the 11 policemen accused in the murder of a former royal, Raja Man Singh in February 1985. Three policemen were acquitted in the case.

Bharatpur: A Mathura court on Wednesday awarded life sentence to 11 policemen convicted in connection with the murder of former royal Raja Man Singh in the year 1985.

The former King was shot dead by the police in an encounter in Rajasthan's Deeg a day after he crashed his jeep in a fit of anger into the stage set up for an election rally of the then Rajasthan Chief Minister Shiv Charan Mathur. Mathur's helicopter was also damaged in the incident.

The eyewitness of the incident, Kunwar Vijay Singh, son-in-law of Raja Man Singh while speaking to ETV Bharat, said that on February 20, 1985, Mathur was campaigning for a Congress candidate from Deeg, Brijendra Singh who was contesting against Man Singh. Ahead of the rally, Congress workers removed the flags and banners of Raja Man Singh from the area which enraged him and the incident happened.

Kunwar Vijay Singh further said that after the incident, a curfew was imposed in Deeg in order to prevent Man Singh from entering Deeg, however, on February 21, 1985, when Man Singh tried to return, he was shot dead by Kaan Singh Bhati (the former Deeg DSP), and other policemen who stopped his jeep. Apart from Singh, his supporters, Thakur Sumer Singh and Thakur Hari Singh, were also killed in the police firing.

The convicts, who were sentenced to life term by Mathura District Judge Sadhna Rani Thakur, include former Deeg Dy SP Kan Singh, 82, and local police station in-charge, sub-inspector Virendra Singh, 78. The other policemen sentenced for the crime are ex-ASI Ravi Shekhar and former constables Sukh Ram, Jeevan Ram, Jag Mohan, Bhanwar Singh, Hari Singh, Chhatar Singh, Sher Singh, Daya Ram and Ravi Shekhar, all above 70 years of age.

“Besides undergoing life imprisonment, all the eleven convicts will have to furnish a fine of Rs 10,000 each failing which they will have to undergo additional imprisonment of two months each,” District & Session Judge Thakur announced in a jam-packed courtroom.

Based on the allegations that Raja Man Singh had banged his Jonga jeep into the then Rajasthan CM’s helicopter in Deeg and also damaged an election rally stage, two FIRs had been lodged against him and his associates at Deeg police station said CBI in a statement in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Days after the killings of the royal family chief and his two colleagues, the case was transferred by the then central government to the CBI on February 27, 1985.

The CBI took over the case on March 1, 1985, and filed a charge sheet in the case on July 18, 1985, within five months of taking over it and completing the probe. It indicted a total of 18 policemen for their alleged roles in killings and shielding fellow cops by creating false evidence.

The trial was later shifted from a Jaipur special court to Mathura in Uttar Pradesh by the Supreme Court in November 1989 on the plea of complainant Vijay Singh, a son-in-law of the slain chief of the erstwhile riyasat.

The trial in the case eventually began in Mathura in January 1990 and the court framed charges in the case on April 30, 1990, against 16 persons, discharging one of the accused while a second one had already died by then.

Two more accused also died in October, 2011 and December, 2006 respectively.