Cuttack: The court of assistant sessions judge-cum-chief judicial magistrate, Cuttack, on Monday sentenced Sushant Dhal Samant, the elder gangster sibling, to five years in jail in a 19-year-old illegal possession and use of arms case.

The case was registered at Bidanasi police station on August 10, 1999, following his arrest of Sushant on that day from the Market Complex at Sector-6 of Markatnagar.

Shopkeepers at the market had accused him of extortion.

Acting on a tip-off, the police had nabbed Sushant while he was terrorising shopkeepers with a gun and extorting money. The police had seized a revolver and nine live bullets from him. "The assistant sessions judge-cum-chief judicial magistrate, Cuttack, Bandana Kar convicted Sushant Dhal Samant in the case and sentenced him to three years for illegal possession of fire arm and five years imprisonment for using of fire arm," additional public prosecutor Tapas Barik said.

"The trial court further imposed fine of Rs 25,000 each for both the charges, for which the conviction and sentence order was issued. The sentence is to run concurrently," Barik said.

While convicting the accused in the case, the trial court had relied on 11 witnesses presented by the prosecution. Sushant, along with his younger brother Sushil, have been in jail since police arrested them on January 29, 2016, on charges of kidnap and murder.