Ajit Sarkar’s widow Madhavi and daughter Rima at their Madhyamgram home. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Patna, Feb. 14: A sobbing Pappu Yadav was today convicted and sentenced to life in jail for the June 1998 assassination of CPM lawmaker Ajit Sarkar in a rare verdict which signalled that politicians were not always above the law.

“The sentence is okay with me, for I want them to die bit by bit,” Sarkar’s widow Madhavi said about the Rashtriya Janata Dal MP from Madhepura and two fellow convicts.

“A death sentence would have finished things in one stroke.”

Pappu alias Rajesh Ranjan, brought from Delhi’s Tihar jail in a wheelchair because of a leg wound, broke down and pleaded with folded hands after the sentence was read out.

“I have been through severe mental and physical torture in jail and even had to spend time in a mental asylum. Please show leniency and commute my punishment,” said the four-time MP who once treated Patna’s Beur jail as his fiefdom before his transfer to Tihar.

The two other convicts — Rajan Tiwari, a former Independent MLA who is now in Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, and RJD worker Anil Yadav — sat impassively as the judge handed them life terms, too.

“In jail, they will know what my husband’s life was worth. If he (Pappu) has any humanity left, he will realise what he did was wrong,” Madhavi said from her daughter Rima’s home in Madhyamgram, Calcutta.

Madhavi joined the CPI-ML after the murder, accusing the CPM of selling out to Lalu Prasad’s RJD.

Sarkar, a firebrand land activist and three-time Purnea Sadar MLA, was 41 when he was shot dead in his car along with driver Hemant and friend A. Rahman. His movement, which helped 8,000 landless poor wrest 20,000 acres, had brought him into conflict with powerful landlords who may have set Pappu against him.

Pappu, then state Samajwadi Party chief, saw Sarkar as a rival in Purnea whose Lok Sabha seat he once held. He allegedly handed Tiwari, then a small-time goon, an AK-47 to shoot the MLA.

Two others, Amar Yadav and Harish Choudhary, too, were found guilty but were not sentenced today. Pappu, Tiwari and Anil — who have also been fined Rs 10,000 each — said they would appeal in a higher court.

“My family has waited for this day for 10 years. We hail the verdict and remember my husband this day with a heavy heart,” Madhavi said.

Pappu Yadav after the sentence. (PTI)

Her elder daughter Rima, 27, is a doctor in Calcutta; son Amit, a 25-year-old engineer, is posted in Australia; and the younger daughter, Nitu, 23, is a homemaker.

The CBI, handed the case in 1999, fielded 61 witnesses but 23 turned hostile. The defence, led by lawyer Majid Memon, produced 27 witnesses. The six-year trial ended on February 4.

Key prosecution witness Ravindra Singh said: “I would have been happy only with the death sentence.”

Pappu claimed he was innocent as he was being driven out of the court, which had turned down his plea for attending the proceedings through videoconferencing from Tihar jail. His crestfallen supporters also shuffled away.

Pappu is the second sitting MP from Bihar to be given a life term after the RJD’s Mohammed Shahabuddin of Siwan.