LUCKNOW: More than 30 years after a police officer and 12 villagers were killed in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh, a CBI court has held eight cops guilty of plotting their murder in a fake encounter.

The court has awarded death penalty to three cops and life term to five.

In all, 19 policemen were chargesheeted; among those 10 died during the trial and seven have retired from the service.

CBI judge Rajendra Singh found RB Saroj (then station officer of Kaudia police station in Gonda), Ram Nayak Pandey (then a head constable) and Ram Karan Singh Yadav (a constable) guilty of conspiring to eliminate Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) KP Singh and the 12 villagers. The three have been awarded death penalty.

The others- Nasim Ahmad, Ramakant Dixit, Mangla Singh, Pervez Hussain and Rajendra Prasad Singh- have been convicted and awarded life term for facilitating the three. The court acquitted a cop, Prem Singh, for want of evidence. All convicted cops have retired except Ram Nayak Pandey, who is a sub-inspector in Jaunpur.

The incident had taken place on the night of March 12, 1982, at Madhavpur village in Gonda. The police party of neighbouring police stations reached the village to "encounter the dacoits" based on "a tip off". But station officer Saroj, against whom DSP KP Singh was pursuing an inquiry, conspired and got him killed with the help of other cops.

After killing a dozen innocent villagers and declaring them as dacoits, the cops killed the DSP too. The cops later submitted a report claiming that the dacoits had killed the DSP in an encounter following which the police team killed the dacoits in an exchange of fire.

Initially, Katra Bazar SO Tirath Rajpal investigated the incident and gave the accused cops a clean chit. Later, the DSP’s widow, Vibha Singh, and one Chitranjan Singh, a villager, moved the Supreme Court which directed the CBI to take up the probe.

The CBI registered an FIR on February 24, 1984, and after the investigation submitted chargesheet against 19 cops on February 28, 1989, accusing them of killing the DSP and villagers in a fake encounter.

The CBI had also chargesheeted cops BM Sharma, PR Pal, Ram Pal Singh, KP Rai, RK Tripathi, Ram Vriksha Yadav, Srikant Pandey, Gaya Prasad Tiwari, Satyakant Tiwari and Jang Bahadur for the fake encounter but they died during the pendency of the trial.