Sher Singh Rana, the prime accused in the Phoola Devi murder case was today convicted by a court. The sentencing is likely to take place on 12 August. Phoolan Devi was shot dead by Rana in front of her Ashoka Road bungalow, that she got as an MP for the Samajwadi Party in New Delhi. [caption id=“attachment_1656155” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Sher Singh Rana in a file photo. AFP[/caption] Here are some interesting facts about the case: * According to a report in The Telegraph, “The gunmen escaped in a Maruti car which they later abandoned a kilometer away when they switched to an auto rickshaw. The auto rickshaw driver had been traced and told police that one of the three men got off within half a kilometer of the murder site while the other two got off some distance away.” * There was much speculation on who had murdered Phoolan Devi. Even after a week of her murder the police had little clue. However it was Rana who claimed that he had killed her. The Guardian had reported , “He said he killed her in retribution for Devi’s infamous massacre in 1981, in which she gunned down 22 high-caste thakurs in the tiny north Indian village of Behmai. Bizarrely, Rana also said he carried out the killing because he wanted a career in Indian politics.” * Initially police had refused to believe that Rana had actually killed Phoolan Devi because of lack of evidence. * Even though Rana had surrendered before the police in Dehra Dun in July 2001 right after the murder, he escaped from Tihar prison. The Hindu reports “in 2004, he fled from Tihar and reached Kandahar in Afghanistan from where he bought the relics of Rajput king Prithviraj Chauhan.” * Despite Rana’s escape he was tracked down by the police and arrested in Kolkata in 2006, two years after his escape. * Apart from Rana there were 10 others accused in the case, they were acquitted today. According to the The Hindu, they are “Dhan Prakash (alias Vicky), Shekhar, Rajbir, Rajinder, Amit Rathi, Praveen Mittal, Keshav Chauhan, Surinder Singh (alias Suri) and Vijay, brother of the prime accused. Mustaqeem, who supplied weapons for the crime, and Shravan, who works in a liquor shop.” * After Rana returned to prison, he also moved court seeking to contest elections in Uttar Pradesh from jail. A Times of India report says, “Rana, had moved the court of chief metropolitan magistrate, Vinod Yadav, seeking custody parole for filing the nomination papers for contesting the elections from Jewar constituency in Gautam Budh Nagar district as a candidate of Rastravadi Pratap Sena.” * One of the accused in the murder case, Pradeep, who had spent six years in prison died in 2013. According to officials the 35-year-old man died following a heart attack. *Rana’s autobiography Jail Diary: Tihar Se Kandahar Tak published in 2012.