Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Legislative Assembly and former Uttar Pradesh minister Anand Sen was on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the abduction and murder of a young girl in Faizabad nearly three years ago.
Sen's driver Vijay and a close friend Seema Azad were also awarded life imprisonment for being involved in the murder.
The sentence was announced by a special trial court presided by Judge Matambar Singh.
The daughter of BSP worker Yogendra Prasad, Shashi, 24, was abducted on October 22, 2007 while she was returning from her college. She was a third year law student of Saket Degree College in Faizabad.
Investigations revealed that Shashi was last seen in the MLA's car with the latter's driver Vijay on October 22, after which she remained untraceable. Nearly two weeks later, her body was found floating in Gomati River in Sultanpur.
The highly decomposed body could be identified from the wrist watch she had been wearing. Shashi's father identified the wrist watch, which was recovered much later from a boatman who had pulled it off her body.
While the body had flown down the river, it was the boatman's confession and the recovery of the wrist watch that corroborated the girl's identity.
Investigations revealed that the driver took Shashi to the MLAs' room in the Faizabad Circuit House, after which she was killed. The driver carried the body and dumped it in Gomati River.
Son of a prominent politician Mitra Sen Yadav, Anand Sen was chosen by Mayawati and sworn in as a minister in her government in 2007.
At the time of his swearing in, there were several criminal cases pending against him.
After his involvement in Shashi's murder was revealed by the media, Mayawati promptly dropped him from her Cabinet.
