The CBI court in Lucknow on Friday acquitted underworld don Om Prakash Srivastava alias Bablu Srivastava in a 1998 case involving the kidnapping of the owner of Hotel Lington in Kolkata, holding that the CBI had failed to prove the charges against him.
The court, however, held that the prosecution had failed to prove that Srivastava was operating his gang from Naini Jail or was directly involved in the kidnapping. The CBI subsequently took over the investigation of FIR No. 489/98, registered on December 14, 1998, at Cantt police station in Allahabad on the complaint of Dhirendra Kumar Srivastava.
After the trial, the court acquitted Srivastava on all counts in its judgment delivered on Friday, holding that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution said the CBI took over the investigation following an Allahabad high court order dated February 1, 1999, in writ petition 4235/1999. After completing its investigation, the CBI filed a charge sheet against Srivastava on October 9, 2001, under sections 385, 387 and 506 of the IPC. The court framed charges under the same sections on October 13, 2003. He is currently lodged in Bareilly Central Jail, serving a life sentence awarded by a special TADA court in Kanpur on September 30, 2008, for the 1993 murder of Customs additional collector LD Arora in Allahabad. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence on January 25, 2011.
Taking note of the seriousness of the matter, the high court ordered the CBI to conduct a thorough investigation into the entire episode. Despite the acquittal in this case, Srivastava will remain in jail.
