Two others, Rajesh Kumar and Teni Yadav, also awarded life imprisonment; Rocky’s father Bindi Yadav sentenced to five years in prison

A Gaya court on Wednesday sentenced Rocky Yadav alias Rakesh Ranjan and two others to life imprisonment while his father Bindi Yadav was awarded a five-year jail term for the killing of Aditya Sachdeva, 19, in May 2016.

Rocky gunned down Aditya for overtaking his SUV while coming from Bodh Gaya to Gaya.

Additional district and sessions judge-1 Sacchidanand Singh sentenced Rocky, his cousin Tenni Yadav and Rajesh Kumar, bodyguard of his lawmaker mother, to life terms.

Fine imposed

The judge also imposed a ₹1 lakh fine on Rocky and ₹50,000 each on the other two accused.

The five-year jail term to Bindi was for harbouring an offender and for furnishing false information.

Last week, the court had found all of them guilty in the case.

Rocky’s lawyer Kaiser Sarfuddin said they would challenge the verdict in the Patna High Court, while Bindi’s advocate moved a bail petition, but the court reserved its verdict on the plea.

On October 19, 2016, Rocky was granted bail by the Patna HC but when the State government challenged it in the Supreme Court on October 28, he was sent back to jail. Later, on November 21, the trial court framed charges.

During the trial, friends of Aditya, who were accompanying him on that day, turned hostile, but key evidence gathered by the police helped to nail Rocky and the others.

Rocky was convicted of killing Aditya, son of a local businessman in Gaya town, Shyam Sachdeva, for overtaking his SUV Range Rover on May 7, 2016.

After the incident, Rocky went missing but three days later he was arrested from a factory owned by his father.

Bindi is a local strongman-turned-politician and he was instrumental in the election of his wife Manorama Devi as JD(U) MLC, who, after the incident, was suspended from the party.

‘Truth has prevailed’

“We are grateful to the court for awarding life term to the accused …we always had faith in the judiciary…truth has prevailed, and we would also like to thank Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who had promised us that the guilty will not be spared,” Chanda Sachdeva, mother of Aditya, told The Hindu over phone.

She had earlier said that she did not want death penalty for Rocky as “a mother, she could feel the pain of losing a young son.”