Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)
Udupi, May 7: In connection with the criminal case pertaining to the murder of Billady Rajaram Shervegar, a BJP activist and environmentalist in Brahmavar in the year 1995, district and sessions judge K N Phaneendra pronounced the judgment on Wednesday May 6. According to the judgment, four persons have been sentenced, while 17 have been acquitted for want of evidence. Those sentenced have been granted bail, to enable them to appeal against the sentences.
During the time anti-MRPL agitation was held in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district on December 21 and 22, 1995, a protest was in Harady village ner Brahmavar against setting up of Usha Ispat Company there. Environmentalist Jnanavasant Shetty was assaulted on the morning of December 23, at his home near the fish market. The crowd that assaulted Shetty arrived at Samir Complex, in which Rajaram Shervegar used to run a shop named Durga Traders the same afternoon. When the then circle inspector of police Rafiq Mulla took Rajaram inside, the crowd followed them and assaulted Shervegar. The policemen admitted the badly injured Shervegar to Manipal hospital, where he breathed his last by 6.30 pm that evening. Rafiq Mulla himself registered a case against the accused, in Brahmavar police station.
Because of the frequent transfers of investigating officers, the investigation moved very slowly. After MLA Sadananda Gowda and MLC Balakrishna Bhat raised the issue in the legislature session, chargesheets were filed against the 21 accused in the year 1997.
The court has sentenced the first three accused, Barkur Ramanand Shetty, Nadur Nityanand Shetty and Birti Rajesh Shetty in addition to the fifth accused Prabhakar Kunder to three years of rigorous imprisonment. They have also been fined Rs 15,000 each, with directions to undergo six more months of simple imprisonment in case of failure to pay up the fine. The court opined that the prosecution has failed to conclusively prove the involvement of the other accused in the crime.
Public prosecutor J I Kittur had argued for sentencing the accused to ten years of imprisonment while the lawyer for the accused sought lenience. The court opined that enough evidences are not on record to prove that the murder was committed purposefully and the sentence now pronounced is adequate in view of the fact that the accused persons had to attend court hearings for 14 years.
Out of the accused, the fourth accused Birti Suresh Shetty had died three months ago, due to cardiac arrest while the sixth accused Myrekome Jaiprakash Shetty was murdered in 1999. The 14th accused Molahally Shashidhar Shetty had committed suicide about two and half months back.