Speaking publicly for the first time after being granted remission by the Bihar government, former MP Anand Mohan said he was innocent in the murder of young IAS officer G Krishnaiah and added “he would rather be hanged than being falsely accused”.
Mohan was addressing a public gathering in Bihar’s Araria district on Wednesday.
Mohan was initially sentenced to death by a trial court in 2007. However, he was commuted to life by the Patna high court in 2008, a decision which the Supreme Court upheld in July 2012 for the alleged murder of Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah in December 1994.
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Notably, neither Araria Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP nor the local BJP MLA shared a dais with Mohan during the function organised to unveil the statue of Veer Kunwar Singh.
Citing his close relationship with former Union home minister Lal Krishna Adwani and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, he dared his critics to talk to these leaders and ask them about his nature.
The former MP alleged that the widow of the slain IAS was being made a scapegoat by some political parties.
Terming himself a leader who has been obeying the Constitution in letter and spirit, Singh said, “Yeh Desh kisi ke baap ka nhi hai” (This country is nobody’s property), adding everybody has irrigated it with blood and asserted he was out of jail as “he was innocent”.
The function which was organised by Araria district Kshatriya Samaj is believed to project Mohan as the sole leader of the Rajput community.
Mohan’s wife and former MP Lovely Anand, who accompanied him during the function, said, “Killing innocent is tantamount to implicating innocent into false cases” asserting her husband was innocent.
Declaring the protests against the remission granted to her husband unlawful and illogical she tried to play an emotional card saying “Nobody knows how I spent my days without my husband during all 16 years.”
During the function, several Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders, including disaster management minister Shahnawaz Alam shared a dais with Mohan.
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Political observers have said that Mohan’s speech was a calculated move of RJD to garner the support of upper castes. “This was a calculated step towards the extension of M-Y in Bihar politics,” said political observer Prof Naresh Kumar Srivastava, adding, “This is likely to strengthen RJD in Bihar.”
The Supreme Court recently issued notice to the Bihar government asking them to respond to a petition filed by the wife of slain bureaucrat G Krishnaiah, explaining the remittance granted to the man behind his murder, gangster-turned-politician Mohan, who walked out of jail on April 27 after serving 15 years and nine months in prison after on April 10, the state government amended Rule 481 (1-a) of the Bihar Prison Manual 2012, according to which anyone sentenced for the murder of a government servant on duty was earlier ineligible for remission even after 20 years.
