Won’t rest till Pradeep Sharma is convicted: Victim’s advocate bro

S Ahmed Ali & Rebecca Samervel | TNN

July 13, 2013
Mumbai: “I am satisfied that the encounter was proved to be fake and relieved that seven years of my hard work have been rewarded by the justice of law. I am only upset that the main accused, Pradeep Sharma, has been acquitted,” said Lakhan Bhaiya’s advocate brother Ramprasad Gupta who fought a legal battle to prove that his brother death was a “cold-blooded murder”. He added they would seek enhancement of charges aga inst 13 convicts for whom the prosecution had sought the death sentence.
    Gupta clarified that he won’t rest till he “gets” Sharma. “The state is going to go in appeal but in case it does not, then I will appeal against Sharma’s acquittal.”
    Reacting to the convicted accused, who said that his brother was a gangster, he said, “Yes, my brother was a criminal. But that was in the past. He had been successfully rehabilitated and was living a normal life when he was murdered. And even if he was a criminal, it does not mean the police have a right to kill him. They could have arrested him instead.”
    Though he has received threats along the way, he never backed down. Ramprasad was threatened when he approached the police after prime witness Anil Bheda’s body was found burnt in a remote bungalow in the Manor jungle.
    Prior to Bheda’s disappearance, he had also received calls threatening him with death if he didn’t turn hostile in court. He also said that the entire process has been a drain on his financial resources. “I have had to go against my family’s wishes to pursue the matter. My wife has been very worried about my safety and has time and again insisted that I stop.”
    He further said that even filing the appeal will cost him around Rs 17,000 as he will have to pay around Rs 10,000 to procure a certified judgement copy. The copy is expected to be around 2,000 pages long. Looking at the future, Gupta said he will have to get back to practising law full time to sustain himself and his family.
    In November 2006, after Lakhan Bhaiya had been picked up by plainclothes policemen, Ramprasad faxed and telegraphed then Mumbai police commissioner A N Roy saying his brother was in danger of a staged encounter. Ramprasad later visited the fake encounter site and did his own probe. A security guard there told him that there had been no firing, but rather the road had been cleared and a body dumped. He approached the Bombay High Court and sought a magisterial probe.
WHO IS HE? He is Lakhan Bhaiya’s advocate brother,
Ramprasad Gupta, who fought a legal battle to prove that his brother’s death was a ‘cold-blooded murder’
THREATS TO HIS LIFE He has received threats along the way. He was threatened when he approached the police after prime witness Anil Bheda’s burnt body was found in a remote bungalow in the Manor jungle