Chinsurah, April 19: A police constable has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a youth who had allegedly refused to pay him a bribe.

Purnendu Samanta, attached to Uttarpara police sta-tion in Hooghly, had shot Sanjoy Chakraborty, a resident of Belur, on GT Road near Bally Bridge on September 4, 2003.

Advocate Sukanta Sengupta, appearing for the victim’s family, told the Hooghly additional chief judicial magistrate that Purnendu had stopped Sanjoy’s two-wheeler on GT Road and demanded money. When Sanjoy refused to pay up, Purnendu shot him. Sanjoy died on the spot.

“After killing Sanjoy, the constable fired a bullet into his own hand and told his seniors a cooked-up story about having fired in self-defence after Sanjoy shot him,” Sengupta said.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had met Sanjoy’s mother Nirmala and promised that her son’s killer would not be spared.

Samanta was suspended and a murder case started against him.