Former Rashtriya Janata Dal Member of Parliament Mohammad Shahabuddin was on Friday sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of two brothers in Bihar’s Siwan district 11 years ago. On Wednesday, Additional District Judge Ajay Kumar Srivastava had found Shahabuddin, Rajkumar Sah, Sheikh Aslam and Arif Hussain guilty of, among other charges, murder, kidnapping for ransom and criminal conspiracy.

According to the prosecution, three sons of Shahabuddin’s political opponent Chandrashekhar Prasad were abducted from their house at Goshala road by Sah, Aslam and Hussain on August 16, 2004. Two of the sons, Girish and Satish, were taken to Pratappur village and killed after acid was poured on them. The third son, Rajeev Raushan, managed to escape and appeared before the judge as an eyewitness, but was subsequently murdered by unidentified assailants on June 16, 2014. The bodies of the two brothers could not be recovered.

The victims’ mother Kalawati Devi had lodged an FIR charging Shahabuddin’s three henchmen with the murder of her sons. Shahabuddin’s name cropped up during investigation and he was made an accused for conspiring to kidnap the three siblings.