Former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren was on Tuesday acquitted in a 36-year-old double murder case by a fast-track trial court where he was facing trial as the sole accused. Lack of enough evidence against him led to Mr Soren’s acquittal, making it the third murder case from which he emerged unscathed.
After additional district judge Mohammad Qasim of the 9th fast-track court in Giridih pronounced him not guilty, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief was relieved from one of the oldest judicial burdens on him that sprang from allegations that he had led a mob that killed two men for stealing goats in April 1974 in Kurko village of Giridih district.
Emerging from the court room along with his son Hemant Soren and a few senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leaders, a visibly glad Mr Soren said: “The courts always give justice. I always have full faith in the judiciary”.
The acquittal would prove both a personal and political relief for Mr Shibu Soren, who is already battling a sagging image following his helpless resignation as chief minister in May.
Still a tribal icon in Jharkhand for his struggles for separate statehood for that erstwhile part of Bihar, Mr Shibu Soren’s three rises to the post of chief minister have remained brief and ended ignominiously.
But he has been cleared by the courts from serious charges three times — in the 1975 Chirrudih massacre case and in the Shashinath Jha murder case, both three years ago, before the present acquittal.
Trial in the Kudko double murder case saw an unexpected turn when, on the scheduled date of judgment delivery on April 17, the judge so far hearing the case, additional district judge N.N. Singh, chose to disassociate himself from the trial, leading to the trial’s transfer to the court of Mohammad Qasim.
The judgment was reserved after trial ended on June 3 with Mr Soren’s personal appearance.