The sessions court on Tuesday sentenced Shabbir Shaikh (51), an accused in the fake and counterfeit stamp paper “scam”, known as the Telgi scam, to five years of rigorous imprisonment, after he pleaded guilty. Shaikh, the second accused in the case after prime accused Abdul Karim Telgi, had been lodged in Yerawada jail in Pune since 2002 in another case.
While the stamp paper case against Telgi was abated after he died, the FIR against Shaikh was registered in 2010. The chargesheet was filed in 2014 and he was taken into custody in the case earlier this year. Telgi and Shaikh were alleged to have hatched a conspiracy and falsely prepared non-judicial stamp papers to pass them off as genuine.
The prosecution had demanded the maximum sentence for Shaikh, stating that he was convicted earlier in similar offences. Shaikh had told Additional Sessions Judge S U Hake that he has been in jail for the last 20 years and should be be let off with minimum punishment.
A 46-year-old woman, along with her lover, was arrested on Thursday for allegedly killing her husband, a textile businessman, in Mumbai. The police suspect that for two months, Kavita Shah mixed arsenic and thallium in the food of her husband Kamalkant, who eventually died of multiple organ failure on September 20. The police are also investigating the roles of Kavita and her lover Hitesh Jain (46) in the death of Kamalkant’s mother, who passed away a month ago due to similar health issues.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Krishnakant Upadyay said Kavita and Jain have been booked under sections 302 (murder), 328, 120 (B) (conspiracy) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc, with intent to commit an offence of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The police said Kavita and Kamalkant got married in 2000 and have two children. In her complaint to the police, Kamalkant’s sister Kavita Lalwani has alleged that the couple did not share a cordial relationship and often fought.
