Riyaz Siddiqui sentenced to life for builder Pradeep Jain’s murder, fined

MUMBAI: A special

TADA court

on Tuesday sentenced

Riyaz Siddiqui

(67) to life imprisonment in builder

Pradeep Jain

’s murder. On August 31, the court found Siddiqui guilty of the murder. Siddiqui is already serving a 10-year sentence for his role in the 1993 bomb blasts case.

Special judge Govind A Sanap also fined Siddiqui Rs 8.45 lakh. If recovered, half of this amount will be paid to the victim’s wife Jyoti Jain. Siddiqui’s co-convict in both cases, gangster Abu Salem, is serving a life sentence for Jain’s 1995 murder after being found guilty in the case in 2015.

In a 234-page judgement, the court held the prosecution proved that Siddqui, Salem, convicted accused Mehendi Shaikh, absconding accused Anees Kaskar and others had between November 1994 and March 7, 1995 at Dubai “conspired to derive huge profit by illegal means and agreed to strike terror in the Jain brothers and the builder community and to compel the Jain brothers to surrender their right over a Kol Dongri property.”

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said this is not the rarest of rare cases to warrant the death sentence. He earlier stated this is probably the first instance when an accused, who had turned approver, had turned hostile thus forfeiting the pardon granted to such accused. Referring to this, the court held the prosecution proved Siddiqui committed breach of the conditions of pardon tendered to him on July 18, 2006. “He was legally bound to state the truth before this court at the time of his evidence, but by not telling the truth, the accused has given false evidence,” the court said.

Siddiqui will now move the Supreme Court. His wife and sons were present outside the court during the proceedings.

On March 7, 1995, Jain was murdered at his Juhu office, by hitmen hired by Salem. Besides Salem, a court in 2015 held Hassan (50), a former driver, guilty of the murder while holding rival builder V K Jhamb (86) guilty of only extortion. Sunil Jain, the victim’s brother, was an eyewitness and suffered injuries in the attack.

Siddiqui was arrested on December 12, 2005. Naeem Khan, an approver said Siddiqui had initially contacted Salem and Kaskar with a proposal of getting involved in a dispute at the Kol Dongri property to earn money. Siddiqui attended the subsequent meeting in Dubai in 1994 between Salem, Hassan, Kaskar and Shaukat Mistry in which was discussed the possibility of monetarily benefiting if Jain was removed from the property.