Riyaz Siddiqui gets life behind bars for murder

The Special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) (TADA) court on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment to convict Riyaz Siddiqui for his involvement in Pradeep Jain’s murder case and imposed a fine of Rs 8.45 lakh against Siddiqui. The court held Siddique guilty of several charges including murder, conspiracy, attempt to murder and several sections under the TADA Act. The court held that 50 per cent of the fine will be handed over to the widow of Pradeep Jain.

Siddique was booked in the murder case of Jain, a city-based builder who was shot dead outside his Juhu bungalow on March 7, 1995. After his arrest he had become an approver in the case, but had later denied his and gangster Abu Salem’s roles in the murder. The prosecution later declared him hostile. In the confession, which was retracted later, Riyaz had said he was present at the meeting called by Salem and Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Anees Ibrahim to hatch the conspiracy.

The prosecution, while seeking for punishment for the accused had argued that the case does not fall under the ambit of rarest of rare category and hence the state could not ask for death penalty for the convict.