BHOPAL: A special MP/MLA court in Bhopal has sentenced Congress legislator Vipin Vankhede to a year's rigorous imprisonment in a 12-year-old case of rioting and obstructing official work.
Vankhede is the MLA from Agar-Malwa constituency, which he won in the 2020 bypolls.
On March 31, 2011, he and 72 other NSUI workers were charged with rioting, attacking police personnel and obstructing official work following an agitation near Neelam Park in Bhopal.
Vankhede was then the NSUI state president.
According to the prosecution, NSUI workers, led by Vankhede, marched to gherao the assembly, demanding students' council elections in colleges. When police tried to stop them, they scuffled with the cops and pelted stones at them, injuring several police personnel, said the prosecution.
On the basis of an FIR lodged by policemen Rajesh Singh Chandel and Kuldeep Khatri, Jahangirabad police registered a case against Vankhede and the others for rioting, unlawful assembly and injuring a public servant to deter him from duty. On Friday, Vankhede and five others - Vivek Daheriya, Vikas Nandwana, Gaurav Uike, Mahak Nagar and Sanjay Verma - were sentenced to jail and fined Rs 2,000 each. The court of special judge Jayant Sharma declared 66 other accused as absconders.