A local court on Monday sentenced the Ansal brothers to 7 years in jail for evidence tampering in the Uphaar fire tragedy case.
The local court convicted the Ansal brothers, businessmen duo Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal, along with others, to 7 years jail term in connection with the case related to the tampering with crucial evidence in the 1997 Uphaar fire.
The Patiala House Court also administered a fine of Rs 2.25 crore each on the Ansal brothers in the case. The Court also charged Sushil and Gopal Ansal into custody forthwith today. They were out on bail till today in the Uphaar fire case.
Ansal brothers court were allowed to be provided medication and spectacles by the Court. Uphaar Cinema hall fire tragedy took place on June 13, 1997, at Uphaar Cinema in Green Park, Delhi during the three o’clock screening of Hindi Blockbuster movie Border, in which 59 cinemagoers were trapped inside and died of asphyxiation, while 103 were seriously injured in the resulting stampede in the case.
Dr Pankaj Sharma, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) of Patiala House Court pronounced the order on sentence in the Uphaar tampering case against the Ansal brothers — Sushil and Gopal Ansal — today. “I think it is very hard to reach out to this decision given the complexities involved. After some thinking over some nights, I have come to this conclusion that they deserve punishment,” the CMM, in its order today, said. This sentencing was one of its kind, as nobody has ever been convicted for a longer period of time, for tampering of the court record, which is punishable up to life under Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Association of Victims for Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) has fought this battle since 2003 when tampering was detected for the first time in the case. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered after 2003, and the accused are convicted now in 2021 in the case.
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