Patna High Court on Wednesday upheld the life sentence on former RJD lawmaker Mohammad Shahabuddin in connection with the 2004 Siwan acid attack case. The court also upheld a life sentence awarded to three of Shahabuddin's aides - Munna Mian, Sheikh Aslam and Raj Kumar Sah.

The court had earlier reserved its order after hearing concluded on June 30.

The case had made headlines in August 2004 when three sons of a Siwan businessman, Chandra Keshwar Prasad, were picked up from their business locations by Shahabuddin's henchmen, taken to his native Pratappur village and bathed in acid, leading to death of two brothers - Girish Raj and Satish Raj - while the third brother, Rajiv Roshan, managed to flee.

The brothers' mother Kalawati Devi lodged an FIR. The accused persons were also charged with destroying evidence. Despite serious efforts, the police failed to recover bodies of the dead.

The case took another turn when unidentified men killed the lone surviving brother, Rajiv - an eyewitness to the crime - on June 16, 2014. A Siwan court sentenced Shahabuddin to life imprisonment in December 2015 in connection with the double murder case, which he challenged in the high court.

On March 2, 2016, a high court division bench of Justice Anjana Prakash and Justice Rajendra Kumar Mishra granted Shahabuddin bail on the ground that his name was included in the FIR later. The court had then ruled: "Considering that appellants were not named in the FIR in regard to kidnapping for ransom and murder of two persons and five years later, let the appellants during the pendency of these appeals, be released on bail on furnishing bail bond of Rs 5,000 each with two sureties of the like amount each..."

However, as the case hogged the limelight, after Shahabuddin's release from jail, the Bihar government challenged it in the Supreme Court.

While cancelling the bail, the Supreme Court directed Patna High Court to hear the case and conclude the trial at the earliest. Following the SC's order, hearing into the case started again at the high court in May this year. A division bench of Justice K.K. Mandal and Justice Sanjay Kumar was hearing the case.

Shahabuddin's counsel, senior advocate Y.V. Giri, pleaded non-involvement of his client, telling the court his name was not there in the initial FIR lodged in connection with the case but was added in the double murder case 62 months after the incident.

Giri further told the bench that at the time when the crime took place Shahabuddin was in jail. So, Giri said, he was wrongly implicated in the case. He also argued that there was no direct involvement of his client in the case and he was charged only with hatching a conspiracy from behind bars to kill the brothers.

But the bench was not satisfied with the pleas forwarded by Giri and upheld the life imprisonment. Shahabuddin was released from Bhagalpur jail in September 2016 after getting bail from the high court. But his release was challenged in the Supreme Court, which on September 30, 2016, cancelled the bail and ordered that he be taken into custody forthwith. In February, Shahabuddin was shifted to Delhi's Tihar Jail.

"This is the end of an era of terror in Siwan," said Chandrakeshwar Prasad, 70, also known as Chanda Babu, father of the three killed brothers, of the verdict today.