A Bihar court awarded life imprisonment to CPI(ML) MLA Manoj Manzil and 22 others in a murder case on Tuesday. The police took all of them into custody after the judgment and forwarded them to jail.

The Ara MP/MLA court additional district judge–III Satyendra Singh convicted them in a case relating to the killing of a farmer Jai Prakash Singh in 2015. He also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on each of them.

Manzil is a first-time MLA and won from the Agiaon constituency in Bhojpur district in the 2020 Assembly elections. He could lose his membership following the judgment. His party CPI(ML), which has 12 MLAs, is a part of the opposition Mahagathbandan (Grand Alliance).

Singh was killed on August 20, 2015, in retaliation after the murder of a CPI(ML) member Satish Yadav at Bargaon in the district.

Singh’s family had accused 23 people, including Manzil, of being involved in the
murder.

He was arrested after he filed the nomination papers for Agiaon seat in 2020 and sent to jail. He won while in jail and was released on bail in 2022.