Sitamarhi: A Bihar court on Thursday sentenced a legislator, two former parliamentarians and 11 others to hard labor in jail in a 17-year-old arson case.
The convicted included Ram Naresh Yadav of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who represents Parihar constituency in the Bihar legislature. Former Members of Parliament Mohammed Anwarul Haque and Naval Kishore Rai were among those given 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.
A protest against alleged anomalies in flood relief distribution outside the Sitamarhi Collectorate turned violent in August 1988, forcing the police to open fire.
Ram Charitra Rai, a legislator, and four others had died in the police firing.
District magistrate Ram Nandan Prasad, superintendent of police Paresh Saxena and 22 other government employees were wounded in the incident.
On June 2, the court held 15 people out of 45 accused guilty of arson and subsequent police firing.
Yadav is expected to lose his legislator post after the verdict, probably the first case in Bihar where a elective representative loses his seat following conviction in a criminal case, reports The Hindustan Times.
Earlier, two Bihar parliamentarians had lost their Lok Sabha membership after conviction.
Lalu Prasad, leader of Rashtriya Janata Dal and Jagdish Sharma of the same party were disqualified in 2013 after they were convicted in the fodder scam case by a Ranchi CBI special court.
This followed a Supreme Court ruling that any Member of Parliament, legislative assemblies or legislative councils would lose membership of the house if convicted in a criminal case and given minimum two years imprisonment.