Fast-Track Court Awards Death to Three, Jail for One in 2019 UP Lawyer Murder
Muzaffarnagar, April 6, 2026 — A fast-track court in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar has awarded the death penalty to three individuals for their direct involvement in the sensational abduction and murder of a local lawyer in 2019. A fourth convict in the case has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the cover-up.
A “Rarest of Rare” Verdict
Delivering the major verdict on Monday, Additional District and Sessions Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar categorized the brutal killing as falling strictly under the “rarest of rare” category. The court sentenced the three main accused—identified as Rizwan, Singol Alvi, and Shalu (alias Arbaz)—to be “hanged till death”. This severe sentence remains subject to final confirmation by the Allahabad High Court. In addition to the capital punishment, the judge imposed a heavy fine of ₹1 lakh on each of the three primary convicts.
A fourth co-accused, Dinesh, was found guilty of assisting the murderers. He was awarded seven years of imprisonment and slapped with a fine of ₹10,000 under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for causing the disappearance of crucial evidence.
The 2019 Abduction and Murder Plot
According to Government counsel Kuldeep Kumar, the police had filed a comprehensive chargesheet against the four men under sections related to kidnapping, murder, criminal conspiracy, and destruction of evidence.
The gruesome crime dates back to October 15, 2019. The prosecution revealed that the victim, a lawyer named Mohammad Sameer, was abducted from the Ladhawala locality under the Kotwali police station limits. The motive behind the kidnapping and subsequent murder was traced back to a bitter monetary dispute involving ₹45 lakh. After kidnapping Sameer, the perpetrators mercilessly strangled him to death.
Initially, the victim’s father, Mohammad Azhar, filed a missing person report on the day of his son’s disappearance. The very next day, on October 16, the police registered a formal kidnapping case under Section 364 of the IPC.
The investigation took a grim turn five days later, on October 20, when the lawyer’s body was finally recovered. During the probe, police discovered that after the murder, the three primary accused had enlisted Dinesh’s help to transport the body to another location. Based on the identification and confession of the accused, the body was successfully recovered from a dense forest area in Sikri village. Following this discovery, the case was immediately upgraded to include murder and conspiracy charges.
