Janakpurdham, March 28

Dhanusha District Court has slapped life imprisonment along with 12 years’ prison term on former state minister and Madhes Kranti Forum coordinator Sanjaya Sah and six others in connection with the Janakpur explosion.

Seven years after the incident, the court today delivered its verdict hearing on two cases of murder and attempt to murder pressed against the defendants.

While the court handed down life imprisonment to the seven in the murder case, it passed a prison term of 12 years to them over the related attempt to murder case.

As per the court verdict, Mukesh Chaudhary, Ranjit Jha, Jaya Prakash Chaudhary, Suresh Kumar Karna, Mukesh Karna and Jitendra Jha of various underground outfits are the other six persons slapped with 12 years in prison in addition to life imprisonment in the two cases related to the explosion.

While Om Prakash Yadav got five years prison sentence, another accused Sujit Kumar Pande got a clean cheat in the same cases.

Elected as an MP twice from Janakpur, Sah, from the then Forum Democratic Party led by BijayaGachhadar, had once served as state minister for physical infrastructure. He had joined the erstwhile Sadbhawana Party. Later he opened his own party under the name of MadhesKranti Forum. Just a few days after launching his party, he was arrested.

As for Jitendra Kumar Karna, AdityaDev, Ful Kumar Yadav and UmeshTiwari, who were also involved in the explosion but are at large till date, their case has been kept on hold.

Famous theatre artiste RanjuJha, JhagaruMandal, Dipendra Das, BimalSharan Das and Suresh Upadhyaya had died and 40 others were injured when a bomb exploded in RamanandaChowk of Janakpur on 30 April 2012.