Pradeep Goyal’s wife Neema and (above) Jagjit Singh’s father Neeranjan Singh arrive at the court. Pictures by Prem Singh

New Delhi, Oct. 24: A Delhi court today awarded life imprisonment to all 10 members of a police crack team that shot dead two businessmen in an “encounter” in Connaught Place in 1997.

“The crime is not covered by the definition of rarest of rare cases as laid down by the Supreme Court. I, therefore, deem it appropriate to award them life imprisonment,” additional sessions judge Vinod Kumar said.

The court rejected the CBI plea for death penalty for three of the policemen — suspended assistant commissioner S.S. Rathi, who headed the team, and constables Mahaveer Singh and Kothari Ram, whose bullets had killed Pradeep Goyal and Jagjit Singh in a car.

“All the convicted persons were members of the police force and were supposed to be custodians of law. The fact that 34 rounds were fired at the helpless occupants of the car showed the extreme depravity of their crime,” public prosecutor S.K. Saxena argued.

The policemen had claimed that they fired at the car as they mistook one of the businessmen to be Mohammed Yaseen, a gangster from Uttar Pradesh.

“The law does not allow the police to kill even a dreaded gangster like Mohammed Yaseen,” Saxena said. “The manner in which they have killed these two innocent businessmen proved they had a single intention — to kill Yaseen.”

Inspector Anil Kumar, sub-inspector Ashok Rana, head constables Shiv Kumar, Tejpal Singh and Mahaveer Singh, and constables Sumer Singh, Subhash Chand, Sunil Kumar and Kothari Ram were the others who were sentenced to life.

All 10 will have to undergo rigorous imprisonment.

Their counsels had pleaded for lenient terms. “Judges should never be blood-thirsty…. Criminal courts should not be swayed by the sensational nature of the offence,” Rathi’s lawyer had said.

Goyal’s family said though they would have wanted death terms for Rathi and inspector Anil Kumar, they were happy with the decision.

“Such encounters should not take place. No one should be awarded out-of-turn promotions for such encounters,” Pradeep Goyal’s widow, Neema, said.