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SC confirms life sentence for Manjunath killers

27-year-old Manjunath was shot dead on November 19, 2005, when he had gone to a petrol pump to collect samples and investigate reports of oil adulteration. His bullet-riddled body was found
 in a car.

The pump’s owner Pawan Kumar, also known as Monu Mittal, is among those found guilty of murder. The five others are Rakesh Anand, Vivek Sharma, Devesh Agnihotri, Shiv Kesh Giri and Rajesh Verma.

A trial court had in March, 2007, sentenced Mittal and Agnihotri to death, but it was commuted to life by the Allahabad High Court, which said that the crime could not be classified as “rarest of rare.”
Mittal had said that the court “gravely erred” in upholding his conviction on the basis of a confessional statement made by an accused to the police.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled on his petition. Terming the murder as “pre-determined and planned”, the trial court had convicted all the eight accused. Mittal was sentenced to death and the other seven were sentenced to life term.

Manjunath’s murder had drawn massive public outrage and the case was handed over to the CBI. After Manjunath’s murder, two IIM graduates — Anjali Mulatti and Jaishankar — had set up ‘The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust’ to secure justice for him.
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