Shahabuddin, dreaded gangster & RJD MP who terrorised Bihar, dies of COVID in Delhi

On Saturday, convicted dreaded gangster Mohammad Shahabuddin died at Delhi's Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) hospital--where he was undergoing treatment for COVID-19. DG (Tihar) Sandeep Goel confirmed the news about Shahabuddin's death. The 53-year-old gangster was serving a life sentence in Tihar jail and was diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 20. The death of the criminal comes three days after the Delhi High Court directed proper medical supervision of Shahabuddin, who had even been an RJD MP and won elections to the Siwan constituency 4 times, besides having been a RJD MLA. 

Earlier, on Wednesday, the Delhi High Court directed the Delhi government and the prison authority to ensure proper medical supervision and care of the former RJD MP and convicted gangster who was suffering from COVID-19 and was admitted to DDU Hospital. The court also permitted him to speak to a family member twice a day and disposed of his plea for protection of his life. His treatment was being monitored at DDU Hospital.

Shahabuddin and his fiefdom Siwan

Shahabuddin, in reality a feared gangster, was a former multiple-time Member of Parliament from Bihar's Siwan constituency, and a former member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly. Having cut his teeth in the youth wing under Lalu Prasad Yadav, Shahabuddin, since the mid-90s, has been said at various points to have run a parallel mob administration in Bihar's Siwan region where the atmosphere of fear around him was such that hardly anyone would dare to campaign or contest against him, or even speak out, with many of those doing so ending up dead. 

He fell afoul of multiple courts right up to the Patna High Court, Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India, and police forces of states besides Bihar. On more than one occasion he had come to be involved in firefights with police teams, is accused of having threatened to abduct, kill or worse many persons including police officials and jailers. A glance at the sequence of his activities gives one a sense of helplessness as to how difficult it can be to convict and then lock up a proven and known criminal when they enjoy the level of political patronage Shahabuddin did.

While he was accused and charged on various counts, and was also at one point accused of having lied in his election affidavit about the cases he was subject of  (it was 34, not 19 as he claimed), he was finally sentenced to life imprisonment in the case of the 1999 abduction and presumed murder of a CPI(ML) worker Chhote Lal Gupta in 2007. On 15 Feb 2017, the Supreme Court directed that he be transferred from Siwan Jail in Bihar to Tihar Jail in Delhi. He had during one jail term managed to get himself shifted from Siwan jail to Siwan hospital and had one of its floors effectively turned into his own mafia den.

Shahabuddin's links with politicians from inside jail had been the subject of Republic TV's first ever story when it launched in May 2017. The #LaluTapeExposed sting had revealed a phone call between the dreaded gangster and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav, where Shahabuddin could be heard saying 'Your SP is gone' ('khatam hai tumhara SP').

(Image Credits: ANI/Shutterstock composite)