PTI
 
Dubai, Jul 13: Four Indian men have been sentenced to death in Sharjah after being convicted of murder in two separate cases, including one which involved contract killers hired by a businessman to kill his rival.

The Sharjah Sharia court sentenced three Indian men, who acted as contract killers, for the brutal murder of a compatriot and for attempting to kill another.

The three men identified as Zakaria, Basheer and Anwar were hired by a businessman named Kumar for killing his former employee turned business rival Kumil who according to the mastermind was poaching away his customers.

The three men were also awarded a separate 10-year jail sentence for attempting to murder another man named Kuzantil.

Basheer and Anwar will also be subjected to 80 lashes after they were found guilty of alcohol consumption, the Gulf News reported.

Two other men accused in the case -- Fakher Al Deen and Abdul Majeed -- were given five-year jail terms for aiding and abetting the crime, while Kumar was sentenced to 15 years in jail for masterminding the crime.

The three men with prison terms will be deported after serving their sentences, the paper said.

According to court records, Kumil had died instantly after being repeatedly clubbed and stabbed while the second victim Kuzantil had managed to flee and reach a hospital.

The men were apprehended after the police reached the spot and found Kumil's body lying in a pool of blood.

Kumil, who earlier worked with Kumar in the plastic bag business had started his own business later and was poaching away his former employee's customers, Kumar had told police.

Kumar, had however denied that he had ordered the killing of the victim, and said he had only asked the co-accused "to break Kumil's leg".

Prosecutors said Kumar had offered to give the men Dh 4,000 (roughly Rs 50,000) and paid a Dh 2,000 downpayment to Zakaria, who in turn commissioned the other accused to whom he paid Dh 200 each.

Kumar also claimed that the victim used to call and harass his family over the phone and was provoking his workers, the paper said.

In another case, an Indian worker was sentenced to death in Sharjah for premeditatedly beating another man to death.

The Sharjah Sharia court awarded death to a 35-year-old man identified only as SS, for beating an unidentified man to death in a labour accommodation.

SS had denied the charge and appealed the death sentence which is being reviewed by the appeal court.

SS told the police that five illegal and jobless Indian workers had taken up the labour accomadation where he was staying and a brawl had broken out on the day the victim was killed.

He said the five men, in an inebriated condition, had started cursing him following which a fight broke out in which he pushed one of them to the ground and the victim's head hit the floor and started bleeding.

SS had later informed police that the five men were robbers and that they owed him money and took his belongings.