Poet Madhumita Shukla was 24 years old and pregnant when she was shot dead.
Ex-Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi and his wife - convicted in 2007 for the murder of poet Madhumita Shukla and to be released prison after serving 16+ years of a life term - spent over half that time out of jail, Nidhi Shukla, the murdered woman's sister, told news agency PTI on Friday. Ms Shukla alleged she is in possession of government documents that "clearly state 62 per cent of the term the two are said to have served was spent out of jail".
Tripathi and his wife are to be released from prison on the basis of their 'good conduct' behind bars, according to a UP government notification. However, according to PTI, Nidhi Shukla, Madhumita Shukla's sister, has approached the Supreme Court against this decision and has expressed fear that her life, and that of her family, may now be in danger.
"I have been telling everyone this is going to happen... I have procured documents through an RTI (Right To Information request) and these clearly state that 62 per cent of the jail term that the two are said to have served had been spent out of jail," Ms Shukla told PTI.
"I submitted documents to all responsible persons... telling them that between 2012 and 2023 he (Tripathi) was not in jail. The documents, which I have got through the state information commission, after a long fight, bear this out," she said.
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Ms Shukla also alleged Tripathi - a minister in ex-UP Chief Minister Mayawati's government at the time of his arrest and was seen as her right-hand man - had misled prison authorities.
The UP Prisons Department has cited old age - Amarmani Tripathi is 66 years old and his wife Madhumani is 61 - and good behaviour as reasons for their release. Both convicts are currently admitted to Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College.
Tripathi was widely seen then as someone with a great deal of influence and links to various political parties - he was with the late Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party government before switching to Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party. In an interview with NDTV in 2007, Nidhi Shukla had spoken of incessant threats, even after the Supreme Court intervened.
"He is not an ordinary person. That is all I can say," she had said.
However, Amarmani Tripathi had told NDTV he is innocent. "My family and I have nothing to do with this," he said.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has refused to interfere in the release of Tripathi or his wife but has sought a response from the UP government within eight weeks.