Patna, (Bihar Times): Tension prevailed in Bhagalpur on Tuesday following the district court judgement sentencing Kameshwar Yadav to life imprisonment in the 1989 Bhagalpur riots case.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Shambhunath Mishra announced the sentence four days after it found Yadav guilty of inciting communal riots. He was found guilty in a riot case that was re-opened by the Nitish Kumar government. Yadav was found guilty of abducting Mohammad Munna in the Parbatti locality of Bhagalpur in October 1989. Since his body could not be found till now he was presumed dead.

The court found him guilty under Sections 364 (kidnapping), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 149 (unlawful assembling). Apart from Kameshwar’s case, the Bihar government had re-opened 26 other cases concerning the Bhagalpur riots. So far over 300 people have been convicted in the Bhagalpur riots case in the last 18 years. Fourteen of them were convicted on July 7 last. However, one of those convicted managed to give police a slip.

There was strict security at the court premises as the ruling came only five days after the bomb explosions in courts in Lucknow, Faizabad and Benaras. Many of Kameshwar’s supporters made strong protest against the ruling. Shops were closed at many places in Bhagalpur.