New Delhi/ Dehradun, June 6
A CBI court today convicted 18 Uttarakhand policemen for their role in the killing of an MBA student from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh in a fake encounter on July 3, 2009, when the then President Pratibha Singh Patil was visiting the state.

Of the 18 policemen, six sub-inspectors and a constable were found guilty of kidnapping and killing 22-year-old Ranbir Singh. The convicted sub-inspectors are Santosh Kumar Jaiswal, Gopal Dutt Bhatt (SHO), Rajesh Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Nitin Chauhan Chander Mohan Singh Rawat and constable Ajit Singh.

Special CBI Judge JPS Malik held that all 18, barring the Dehradun Police Control Room operator Jaspal Singh Gosain, were involved in the conspiracy. Gosain was found guilty of making incorrect entries in the police record with the intention of saving the guilty policemen from punishment.

The 10 policemen convicted only for the conspiracy include constables Satbir Singh, Sunil Saini, Chander Pal, Saurabh Nautiyal, Nagender Rathi, Vikas Chander Baluni, Sanjay Rawat and Manoj Kumar, besides drivers Mohan Singh Rana and Inderbhan Singh. The court would hear the arguments on the quantum of sentence tomorrow. The CBI had chargesheeted the accused.

The victim's father, Ravindra Singh, and relatives were present in the courtroom. Later, Singh told reporters that he would feel relieved only if the convicts were sentenced to death and hanged. The Supreme Court had transferred the trial to Delhi in 2011 on Singh's plea.

The CBI said the police tortured the student before killing him. Besides the bullet wounds, 27 other deep injuries were noticed on his body. The police had picked up the victim from Mohini Road, Dehradun, on July 3, 2009, suspecting that he and his associates were planning to commit a crime.

The CBI's Special Investigating Team had found more than a dozen empty cartridges from the spot. The autopsy reports revealed that Ranvir was shot from a close range.

Uttarakhand Finance and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Indira Hridayesh has welcomed the court's decision and said justice had been done and the state government would examine the verdict.