Case papers lost, Babloo sent back to UP jail

Dreaded gangster Babloo Srivastava, who is an accused in a 15-year-old kidnapping incident, has been sent back to a high-security jail in Uttar Pradesh after the DN Nagar police failed to find the case papers.

On Monday, when Srivastava was produced before the special Tada court after he was brought to the city, the DN Nagar police sought time to find the papers. Judge DU Mulla sent Srivastava to judicial custody till Tuesday.

But on Tuesday, the police again failed to produce the papers. And since the police made no application for remand, Srivastava was sent back to  Bareilly jail, his lawyer V Jaiswal said. The case will be next heard on February 16.

Srivastava, who was extradited from Singapore in 1995, is accused of conspiring to kidnap a builder, Vishwanath Mandal, from near Express Towers in Nariman point in 1994. Five others were also named as accused in the case. One of them, Sanjay Khanna, has been declared as absconding, while another, Amit, died before the trial started. Three others have been acquitted. 

Srivastava’s trial has been pending for a long while, but he could not be produced before the Tada court all these years because many other criminal cases were pending against him in Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur.