Kanpur (UP), Feb 14 (PTI) Forty-three years after bandit Phoolan Devi and her gang perpetrated the Behmai massacre in which 20 people, mostly from the Thakur community, were shot dead to "avenge" her rape, a court here on Wednesday gave life sentence to one of the two surviving accused.

It is the first conviction in the sensational case involving 35 accused, including Phoolan Devi who gained notoriety after the incident and later surrendered and became an MP but was shot dead on July 25, 2001, at the age of 37.

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On Wednesday, Judge Amit Malviya found Shyam Babu guilty but acquitted Vishwanath due to lack of evidence, Kanpur Dehat district government advocate Raju Porwal said, adding all the other accused have died.

On February 14, 1981, Phoolan Devi and her gang allegedly killed 20 people in Behmai village located in Dehat to avenge her rape by two men from the so called "upper caste" Thakur community. Seventeen of those killed in the massacre were Thakurs.

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The then Uttar Pradesh chief minister V P Singh had resigned after the killings sparked nationwide outrage.

She surrendered in Madhya Pradesh two years after the massacre under an amnesty scheme. She remained in jail till 1994 and won two Lok Sabha elections in 1996 and 1999.

Phoolan Devi was also known as the 'Bandit Queen' after noted film director Shekhar Kapoor made a movie based on the book "India's Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi" by author Mala Sen on her life.

Phoolan Devi's release was facilitated by the withdrawal of cases by then UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's government in "public interest". But the decision was set aside by the Kanpur court and the Allahabad High Court upheld the trial court's decision.

The Supreme Court also rejected her plea for dismissal of all cases against her in December 1996.

On July 25, 2001, then a Samajwadi Party member from Mirzapur constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Phoolan Devi was shot dead from close range by three masked gunmen in front of her Ashoka Road residence in Delhi as she returned home for lunch after attending Lok Sabha.

After the court verdict on Wednesday, convict Shyam Babu was taken to Kanpur Dehat jail.

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