MEERUT Additional district and sessions judge, Ravi Kumar Diwakar, while pronouncing his 23rd capital punishment in the last five months in a murder case on Monday (September 7), said in his verdict that he would prefer death to being called a “coward judge”.
The judge also referred to the influence of the Shaukeen gang in the region. He noted that his court had recently sentenced Shaukeen’s brother, Shahnawaz, to death.
The incident, he said, demonstrated the extent to which criminals had been emboldened in the district and had little fear of law.
He specifically referred to an accused named Adnan Khan, who allegedly used an Instagram account to threaten him. The September 7 judgment also referred to threats allegedly received by the judge and his family after the Gyanvapi case in Varanasi.
Diwakar said he had encountered circumstances in which the influence of mafia, gangsters and criminals had become a matter of concern. Diwakar said he had received several death threats and that some threats had originated from outside India. The account carried his photograph and used the word “kafir” across his eyes, accompanied by threatening language, according to the judgment. The judge said such threats had also affected his family.
The judge’s statement came in a ruling, wherein he sentenced one Nadeem to death in the 2018 Shahpur Shahzadi murder case and imposed a fine of ₹ 1 lakh on him. The case related to Nadeem allegedly setting ablaze his wife Shehzadi, 23, in Shahpur town on July 23, 2018, over dowry demands. On the night of July 3, 2018, at around 8.30 pm, Nadeem assaulted and abused Shehzadi, according to the case details. Shehzadi was subsequently taken for treatment and died at Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi on July 28, 2018.
He allegedly poured kerosene over her before setting her on fire.
