Man impersonates murderer uncle for Rs 10K a month

SAHARSA: In a bizarre case of miscarriage of justice of sorts, not very uncommon in reel life, a youth has been serving the life term awarded to his maternal uncle in a murder case for a payment of Rs 10,000 per month.
Police said Mithilesh Sah was sent to the Bhagalpur central jail nearly five-and-a-half years ago after he on January 5, 2004 surrendered before a local court, claiming himself to be Bhushan Sah.
Bhushan who was awarded life term in 1985 for killing one Gopal Gupta in Nawahatta police station area in 1982. He got bail as he went in appeal in the Patna High Court, but went in hiding after the high court upheld the trial court judgment in 1997. Seven years on, he persuaded his nephew to impersonate him.
Bhushan would have continued to make a mockery of the police and judiciary had Mithilesh's wife Soni Devi not blown the lid off the weird deal. Though her family regularly received the payment, she filed a writ petition in the high court this year, alleging her husband has been illegally jailed.
Saharsa SP Rajesh Kumar said Bhushan wanted Soni to withdraw the writ petition and had come to Saharsa apparently for making a more lucrative offer to her. He was staying with a relative at Mithai Bazaar in the adjoining Madhepura district when Nawahatta police arrested him on Thursday.
The SP said Bhushan had taken crores of rupees as loan from different banks under various fake names and addresses. "We are probing the matter," he said and added police would soon put the facts before the courts concerned for further orders.