Neema and Arun Goyal, widow and brother of Pradeep Goyal, at the Delhi court on Tuesday. Suspended ACP S.S. Rathi (centre) and another policeman being taken away after their conviction in the case. (PTI)

New Delhi, Oct. 16: Ten policemen were today convicted of murder for shooting two businessmen dead in their car at busy Connaught Place in a fake encounter 10 years ago.

The Delhi sessions court also said the ballistic report was fabricated and pulled up government expert Roop Singh, who had come under a shadow also in the Jessica Lal case.

S.S. Rathi, a suspended assistant commissioner known as Delhi police’s “encounter specialist”, and his nine colleagues will be sentenced on October 24 for the daylight killings on March 31, 1997.

They are accused of murdering Haryana-based Pradeep Goyal and Jagjit Singh in a quest for promotion. The police team planted a pistol and cartridges in the car after the shooting and claimed the occupants were gangsters and had fired first.

The court issued notices to Roop Singh whose report had claimed that several firearms were found in the car.

Delhi High Court had earlier indicted the forensic science laboratory expert in the Jessica case where he had propounded the two-gun theory that helped the accused get an acquittal from the trial court.

All the convicts could be punished with the death sentence, which is what the relatives of the victims demanded outside the packed courthouse today.

“I want the death penalty for them. The punishment should be exemplary,” said Pradeep Goyal’s wife Neema.

“My life has been ruined…. The culprits should be punished with death,” said Jagjit Singh’s father Niranjan, who is over 70 years old.

“All the charges against you stand proved,” judge Vinod Kumar told the accused, holding them guilty of murder, attempt to murder, destruction of evidence and giving false evidence.

The shooting, which took place on a busy thoroughfare, had led to the removal of then Delhi police chief Nikhil Kumar.

Rathi was suspended and spent over three years in jail with the other accused after their arrest in July 1997.

The CBI, which carried out the probe, accused the policemen of firing “indiscriminately” without provocation. Rathi was also charged with giving false information to his superiors to prove himself innocent.

The policemen claimed that one of the car’s occupants resembled Uttar Pradesh gangster Mohammed Yaseen and that when they tried to flag the car down, they were fired at. Two constables, Sunil Kumar and Subhash Chand, sustained bullet injuries, they said.

The police team registered a case against the car’s dead occupants for assaulting and obstructing a public servant in the discharge of duty, and another under the Arms Act.

Other than Rathi, Kumar and Chand, the convicted policemen are inspector Anil Kumar, sub-inspector Ashok Rana, head constables Shiv Kumar, Tejpal Singh and Mahavir Singh, and constables Sumer Singh and Kothari Ram. All 10 were taken into custody immediately after the verdict.

“It’s a red-letter day since all the convictions were rendered under Section 302 (murder),” Neema’s lawyer Saif Mahmood said. He added that the judiciary had become “sterner” with the police in fake encounter cases.

In December last year, another Delhi court had convicted three officers for a custody death in 1987.

“We will finally get peace now,” Jagjit Singh’s father Niranjan said, struggling with tears. “Peace-loving citizens were defamed and branded gangsters…. For the last 10 years, we have had to travel from Kurukshetra on each date of hearing.”