Black Friday for Shahabu men, relief for some

3 Mar, 2007

SIWAN: Friday proved to be Black Friday for Mumbaikars. It also became so for the three-time MP and 'Shere Siwan'Mohd Shahabuddin as the special court of First Class Judicial Magistrate V V Gupta awarded punishment to him in a case relating to alleged attack on the CPI-ML office about eight years ago. The CPI-ML office secretary, Keshav Baitha, had lodged a case (181/1998) with Muffasil police station in this connection eight years back. It was 5 am on 'Jumma'day (Friday). Siwan town woke up as usual to the blaring of horns of long-distant buses and trucks. The main road, the Siwan-Chapra Road, popularly known as Babuniya More, was bubbling with activities with morning strollers doing 'pranayam'and physical exercises. The shop-owners and hotel employees were engaged in their day-to-day works when suddenly the shriek of a newspaper vendor, "MP saheb ko saja ho gayi, aaj faisala ho jayega" broke the morning silence. There was no initial reaction. And then, Sudha Verma, a housewife said, "Ye to hona hi tha (This had to happen)." A prominent cloth shop-owner, on condition of anonymity, said Siwan had so often seen Shahabuddin's dictatorial rule that so terrorised Siwan. "Now that he has been awarded a two-year imprisonment, people here are indeed relieved. Ab chain ke sans lene ka samaya aa gaya hai." A lawyer, Kunj Behari Srivastava said happily, "kanoon ka raj aa gaya hai yahaan (It is the rule of the law here)." Shahabuddin's maternal uncle M Mustaquim, also a retired ADJ, said he respected the verdict of the court, but he did so with a heavy heart, for obvious reasons, of course. The CPI-ML secretary, Indrajit Chourasiya, said this historic judgment was the result of people's agitation. He said that his party was for long engaged in an agitation against 'samants'or feudal elements and even if the court had not awarded any punishment, the ML activists would have launched an agitation against Shahabuddin's tyrannical ways. In his reaction, RJD youth cell president Nand Lal Yadav said he had no comments to make on the judgment as the law had taken its own course. Yadav said that the conviction would have no impact on the RJD base because RJD workers still treated Shahabuddin as 'Shere Siwan'immaterial of whether he was in jail or outside it, Yadav said. Meanwhile Siwan district magistrate S K Mall said that magistrates have been deputed in the town area. He said that he had alerted all the police stations of the district.