Expressing outrage over Bihar government's decision to set free former MP Anand Mohan who is serving life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, the slain bureaucrat's wife on Tuesday said political considerations should not drive such decisions and that criminals should not be encouraged in politics.
Talking about the brutal killing of Krishnaiah in 1994, G Uma Krishnaiah said her husband was killed for no fault of his.
"This is a very wrong decision by the (Bihar) chief minister. Good people should be taken to fight elections, only then good government will be formed. If criminals are taken, everybody will protest," she said.
"We are feeling sad. Such a good officer was killed. There was no reason for killing him," Uma Krishnaiah, who lives in the city, told reporters.
"The culprits should be put in jail for life," she said.
Asked about her future course of action in the matter, she said she alone cannot take a decision and that her husband's 1985 batch IAS officers are in touch with her.
Deprecating the presence of criminals in politics, she said 'wrong people' would not hesitate to murder others as it happened in the case of Krishnaiah.
Recalling the struggle she had to undergo following the demise of her husband 29 years ago, she said no other family should face such a situation.
"If such a situation should not repeat (to others), politicians should take good decisions. They should rise above their selfishness," she said.
Caste politics should go and votes of castes should not be the criteria in taking government decisions, she contended.
"As Krishnaiah had been an All India Service officer, the President and prime minister should intervene to see that the Bihar government's decision is taken back.
"She said her husband was returning after attending a meeting when he was attacked because he happened to be a public servant," she said.
"Her two daughters were aged 6 and about 5 at the time of her husband's death and that she took up a job to take care of the family," she said.
Meanwhile, Bahujan Samaj Party president in Telangana R S Praveen Kumar thanked party supremo Mayawati for responding on the killing of Krishnaiah. Anand Mohan should be kept in jail for life, he said in a release in Hyderabad.
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of IAS officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
A notification to the effect was issued late Monday by the Bihar government.
The Telangana-born Dalit IAS officer, who was then the district magistrate of Gopalganj in Bihar, was beaten to death by a mob in 1994, while his vehicle was passing through Muzaffarpur district.
Anand Mohan was present on the spot at the time of the killing, where he was part of the funeral procession of Chhotan Shukla, a dreaded gangster who was pumped with bullets in Muzaffarpur town.
"Anand Mohan has served his jail term and the Nitish Kumar government has removed a discriminatory clause which prevented some of the prisoners from securing release. It is in line with our leader's policy of framing no innocent person and sparing nobody who is guilty," said Janata Dal-United president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan.
Notably, the State Law department's notification follows a recent amendment in rules in which those convicted for serious crimes like killing of a government servant or rape were not to be released even after completing 14 years in prison.
