Sharda Jain, former Delhi municipal councillor, was on Thursday convicted for murder of her party colleague Atma Ram Gupta by a city court, which held that the woman corporator eliminated him as she became insecure about her political career due to his proximity with another woman.

The quantum of punishment is expected to be pronounced on Friday.

"The prosecution story as unfolded by the police shows as to how vicious a lady can be in the lust for love and power," Additional Sessions Judge Bharat Parashar observed while holding 34-year-old Jain guilty for the killing of the 51-year-old councillor four years ago.

She was held guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 364 (abduction) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) under the Indian Penal Code along with her brother Raj Kumar Jain, ex-village head of Chajjupur in Ghaziabad, Roshan Singh, Rajender and hired killers Nirvikar and Puspender.

The court also convicted three Uttar Pradesh policemen for helping Roshan Singh, with whom Jain had struck a deal to kill Gupta, for disposing off his body.

"Circumstances form a chain so complete, which leads me to the only conclusion that it is the present accused persons only who had committed the murder of Atma Ram Gupta after abducting him and also disposed off his body with a view to concealing evidence of their said crime," said the judge in 93-page judgment.

Attributing the motive of the crime to the main accused Sharda Jain, then a Keshavpuram councillor, the ASJ said: "Prosecution has been more than successful in proving that Sharda Jain was having a liking for Gupta and on account of her close association with him she also tasted the fruit of power."

The court held that Sharda Jain, who had developed intimate relations with Gupta, became 'jealous' of the victim's growing proximity with another councillor Memwati

Barwala and conspired with other accused to eliminate him thinking that he, after destroying her personal life, was bent upon ruining her political career also.

'I am of the considered opinion that the prosecution has been successful in proving its case against all the accused persons beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts to the effect that the accused hatched a criminal conspiracy to abduct and murder Gupta," the judge said delivering the verdict in a jam-packed courtroom.

He said it was established from the facts and circumstances of the case that the accused and victim were last seen together and Jain failed to give 'plausible explanation' as to how and when they separated from each other after attending a Congress rally in the capital.

"This fact clearly hammers the last nail in their coffin of guilt having been established from circumstantial evidence led by the prosecution in the present case," the court said, adding: "Jain herself has not disputed the same."