Bhopal, Jan. 28: A CBI court in Indore today handed life terms to prime accused Zahida Parvez and three others in the August 2011 murder of Shehla Masood but relatives of the right to information activist remained sceptical.

Shehla's father Sultan, a retired librarian, broke down after hearing the verdict. "I am at a loss for words. Perhaps the real culprits will never be caught," he said, refusing to elaborate.

Shehla, 38, was murdered while she was leaving her Bhopal home to participate in social activist Anna Hazare's India Against Corruption campaign. Initially, the names of a BJP MLA, an MP and a Sangh functionary had figured as suspects.

Bhopal police had dubbed the death a suicide on the day Shehla was murdered. Three days later, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan handed over the case to the CBI amid allegations of a cover-up.

On February 28, 2012, the CBI arrested Zahida, an interior designer; two contract killers and Saba Faruqui, a person who worked with Zahida. The others convicted today were Saba and the two contract killers, Saqib "Danger" and Tabish.

CBI sleuths had attributed the murder to a "love triangle", claiming that both Zahida and Shehla were in a relationship with Dhruv Narain Singh, a BJP MLA then. The CBI subsequently gave a clean chit to Dhruv, whose brother Harsh is a minister in Chouhan's cabinet.

The CBI relied upon Zahida's diary that reportedly had references relating to Dhruv and Shehla. On the day of the murder, Zahida is said to have written that Saqib called her around 11.15am and said: " Congrats, the job has been done right outside the house#."

Today, judge B.K. Paloda acquitted a fifth accused, Irfan, who had turned a government witness. "The prosecution convinced the court that Zahida out of envy hired the killers to get rid of Shehla due to the latter's growing intimacy with the then BJP MLA, Dhruv Narain Singh," CBI special public prosecutor Atul Kumar said after the verdict.

Shehla's friends insist she had nothing to do with Dhruv. They say she moved to Delhi almost two years before her murder and was reportedly in a relationship with a BJP MP.

Zahida called the verdict extreme. "We have got this extreme verdict without any concrete evidence and witnesses," she shouted in the courtroom. "It's nothing but CBI pressure which rules the roost in Madhya Pradesh." The court, which examined 83 witnesses, took 137 hearings to pronounce the verdict.

Shehla, who had reportedly filed over 200 RTI appeals, had started RTI Anonymous days before her death. It was a portal through which whistleblowers could file RTI applications without having to reveal their identity.