Patna: A former parliamentarian was arrested and sent to jail after a local court in Jharkhand Thursday found him guilty of murdering a lawmaker 22 years back.

Prabhunath Singh, who was a senior leader in Lalu Prasad’s ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and represented the Maharajganj Lok Sabha seat in Bihar twice in past, was convicted by the Hazaribagh district court in a 22-year-old murder case.

His elder brother Deenanath and another accomplice, Ritesh Singh, were also convicted in the murder case.

The quantum of punishment will be announced on May 23.

“My faith in the judiciary has been strengthened with this court order. It’s a victory of justice but I want stringent punishment to the accused persons,” the victim’s widow Chandani Devi told the media Thursday.

Former lawmaker Ashok Singh was bombed to death by some armed assailants at his official residence in Patna in July 1995. Subsequently, a case was registered with the local police station wherein Singh along with two others were made named accused in the case.

Initially, the trial in the case wa held in the Patna High Court, but it was later transferred to the Hazaribagh district court in neighbouring Jharkhand for a fair trial. It was in this case that the court convicted Singh. 
Victim Ashok Singh had been elected to the Mashrakh assembly seat, in Bihar’s Saran district, in 2010.

The seat ceased to exist in 2010 following a delimitation exercise.

The judgement come sas a huge setback to RJD chief Prasad with two of his right-hand men Mohammad Shahabuddin and Singh finding themselves behind bars.

Both wielded political clout in two districts of north Bihar and enjoyed strong support base among their respective social groups.

“Both Shahabuddin and Prabhunath Singh were pillars of Nitish Kumar’s ‘good governance’. Both have been sent to jail now in murder cases,” commented senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi. He added, “He is the same Prabhunath Singh who reached first in Lalu’s support two days back”.

With this conviction, the political career of Singh now appears to hang in the balance, quite like his party chief Prasad, who has already been banned from contesting elections after his conviction in the multimillion dollar fodder scam.

Singh, a muscle-flexing leader, had begun his career with the Janata Dal after which he joined Janata Dal United of Nitish Kumar. In 2012, he quit the JD-U and joined the RJD. Singh had represented the Maharajganj Lok Sabha seat twice in the past.