Lucknow: A special CBI court yesterday sentenced 47 policemen to life imprisonment for killing 10 Sikh pilgrims in a fake encounter in Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh 25 years ago. Special judge Lallu Singh had on April 1 held the policemen guilty of a ‘fake encounter’.

On July 12, 1991, the policemen stopped a luxury bus filled with Sikh pilgrims and forced 10 passengers to get off. A chargesheet said they were divided into groups, taken to different areas in a jungle and killed in ‘cold blood’.