A Delhi court has convicted BJP leader and former MLA Satendra Solanki and his brother Harendra Solanki for the murder of Indrapal Dhaka, a political rival, 22 years after the incident took place.
The punishment would be awarded on May 7. Deceased Dhaka’s brother, Amarpal Singh, said that they had demanded capital punishment for both. “The court has now convicted them and will now pronounce the punishment on May 7. We are finally getting justice after a long battle of 22 years,” said Singh.
Initially, the hearing of the case was going on in a Meerut court, but after an appeal by the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court 11 years back, the case was shifted to Patiala House Court of Delhi, informed Singh, adding that the hearing here was going on at a very slow pace hence we made a request to the SC to move the case to some other court.
Satendra Solanki and Harendra Solanki were charged with the murder of Indrapal Dhaka in 1997. Satendra was active in politics all these years. He was even elected an MLA on an RLD ticket in 2007 from Barnawa constituency of district Baghpat. He also contested the Assembly election of 2017 on a BSP ticket from Meerut Cantonment constituency but lost to Saryaprakash Aggarwal of the BJP. Then he joined the BJP a few months back.
Indrapal Dhaka of Dhikaulli village and Satendra Solanki had a dispute over some property in Meerut. Both were also active in politics. On June 24, 1997, Dhaka was shot dead near Jail Chungi in Meerut in broad daylight. During the postmortem, 11 bullets were recovered from his body.
As the investigation started, the involvement of Solanki brothers in the murder came to light. Dhaka’s friend Ashok Kumar was accompanying him at the time of the incident and he identified the Solanki brothers. Ashok gave his statement to the police after which he went missing.
Deceased Dhaka’s brother, advocate Amarpal Singh Dhaka, fought the case for 22 years.