Ex-Jharkhand minister Yogendra Sao acquitted in four cases as police officials turn ‘friends’

Witnesses, most of them being police officials, have stopped turning up before the court to depose in the criminal cases involving former state minister Yogendra Sao.

Consequently, Sao has been acquitted in as many as four cases recently.

A civil court advocate informed this saying it was the second consecutive day today when the trial court acquitted Sao and 20 others in a criminal case due to lack of evidence. A case was registered against him and others at Tandwa police station in Chatra district.

It was alleged in the FIR registered on June 20, 2015 that Sao leading a group of 250-300 people allegedly barged into the Amrapali coal project area and damaged equipment engaged in coal production work and disrupted the work. Senior security inspector of the project Chakrapani Ghosh was an informant of the case.

There were as many as 11 witnesses in the case but none of them including the informant turned up to depose before the court despite repeated attempts.

Sao’s daughter Amba Prasad happens to be a Congress MLA and has met Chief Minister Hemant Soren several times to seek “justice” for her parents. The Congress has supported the JMM to run the government. According to sources, the police officials, who had either lodged the cases or included as witnesses, have turned friends and done the vanishing act under instruction from the high ups and so prefer not to testify in these cases.

Sources close to Sao said there are as many as 27 cases against Sao. Now hardly 12 cases are pending against him. In most of the cases he has been acquitted.

On Tuesday, the trial court of additional judicial commissioner Vishal Kumar Shrivastave acquitted Yogendra Sao and his wife Nirmala Devi, an ex-MLA, and 10 others due to lack of evidence in the case which had been registered after an attack on policemen on duty.

An FIR in the case was registered in this connection at Barkagaon police station on May 17, 2016. Urimari outpost in charge Lal Bahadur Singh had registered the FIR.  It was alleged that all the people mentioned had attacked the police on duty.

Apart from Yogendra and Nirmala, 10 other accused in the case included Mintu Soni, Mithilesh Dangi, Rajeev Ranjan, Prakash Rana, Jahid, Laljit Rana, Dharmu Rana, Yogeshwar Mahto, Dileshwar Mahto and Lakhendra Thakur.

Earlier within 10 days in two more cases Sao and his wife were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

The only case in which he was convicted and awarded 10 years imprisonment on March 24 this year is the 2015 Barkagaon firing case, in which several people had lost their lives. The firing took place when Sao and former MLA Nirmala Devi, along with the local villagers had organized the Satyagraha in protest against the proposal of a mining plant by the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) in the year 2015.