Dhanbad, Apr 25 (PTI) Two persons who were undergoing life imprisonment for killing judge Uttam Anand in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district were on Tuesday given three years in jail for stealing an auto-rickshaw that was used in the murder.

The court of CBI special judge Abhishek Srivastava gave Rahul Verma and Lakhan Verma three years in jail, and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on each after convicting them for stealing the auto-rickshaw.

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Besides, the court also gave them 9 months in jail and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on each for destroying evidence, Public Prosecutor Sameer Kumar said.

Judge Anand was hit by an autorickshaw when he was out for morning walk on July 28, 2021 at Randhir Verma Chowk near the the Dhanbad district court.

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CCTV camera footage showed that the judge was jogging on one side of a fairly wide road when the three-wheeler veered towards him, hit him from behind and fled.

Trial in the murder case had started in February last year and after recording statements of 58 witnesses during the hearing, the court convicted Rahul and Lakhan and sentenced them to life imprisonment in August.

Besides imprisonment till death, the bench had imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on them.

An SIT was initially formed to probe the murder, but the state government later handed the investigation to the CBI.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)