The special court in Lucknow, trying the December 2008 murder case of PWD engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta, directed the principal secretary (Home), IGs of Lucknow and Kanpur Range on Friday to provide security to the witnesses in the case.

The direction was passed following an application by Gupta’s wife Shashi. She had alleged that on Thursday, when she came out of the courtroom, there were around 100 people outside, many of whom made threatening gestures at her. Shashi claimed that in such circumstances, it would not be possible for the witnesses to freely make statements.

She also mentioned that witnesses have come to Lucknow from other districts to record their statements, said I B Singh, Special Counsel for the state government.

Besides Shashi, the other witnesses in the case are Jai Veer, the security guard of Gail Vihar Colony, Ramesh Chandra Rajput, the cook at the colony’s guest house and Constable Harbansh Singh.

The constable claimed to have witnessed some people leaving behind an injured Gupta at the police station. On Friday, all three witnesses, except Shashi, appeared before the court. The next hearing has been fixed for July 13.