[4] Shahabuddin was disqualified from contesting elections following his conviction for the kidnapping and disappearance of Chote Lal Gupta, an activist of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation for which he was serving a life sentence.
[9] Shahabuddin was described as a convicted gangster,[10][4] a bahubhali (strongman) in the Siwan district,[11] and a close aide of Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Rashtriya Janata Dal president.
With Lalu Prasad holding sway over the then state government of Bihar, and the formation of the Rashtriya Janata Dal in 1997, Shahabuddin's power increased dramatically.
A report by the People's Union for Civil Liberties in 2001 states: The patronage and de facto immunity from legal action offered to him by the RJD government gradually made him a law unto himself giving him an aura of invincibility.
By the early 2000s, Shahabuddin was running a parallel administration in Siwan, holding khap panchayats to settle family and land disputes, fixing doctors' consultancy fees, and arbitrating on marital problems.
In late 2003, eight months before the 2004 general elections, Shahabuddin was arrested on charges of abducting Chote Lal Gupta, a Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation worker in 1999, who was never seen again.
[17] One petitioner turned out to be a policeman seeking a promotion;[18] Shahabuddin called up the police bosses on his mobile phone and arranged things on the spot.
[18] Although the elections saw little activity by the opposition – every shop carried a photograph of Shahabuddin, and according to a BBC report: Several phone booth owners and other businessmen were killed after putting up banners or posters of opponents.
[19] A few days before the election, the Patna High Court directed the state government to return Shahabuddin to jail, instead of to Siwan hospital.
[20] Shahabuddin won the election comfortably, though the second-place finisher Om Prakash Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) party, had managed to get two lakh votes, about 33.5% of the electorate.
[21] Within days of these results being announced, nine party workers of the Janata Dal (United) were killed, and a large number were beaten up; it is widely believed that this was retaliation for daring to put up a credible fight.
[16] In April 2005, a police raid led by then SP of Siwan district Ratn Sanjay (IPS) with the support of DM of Siwan district C. K. Anil (IAS) on Shahabuddin's house in Pratappur village helped recover illegal arms such as AK-47s, and other military weaponry authorised for possession only by the army, including night-vision goggles and guns with laser aiming modules(LAM)/laser aiming aids.
These include a large number of "disappearances" from Siwan; reports in the media allege that as many as a hundred bodies may be buried on the grounds of Shahabuddin's well-fortified Pratappur palace, the venue of the 2001 firefight.
[38] In August 2006, while Shahabuddin was undergoing treatment in New Delhi, some of his supporters were prevented from entering by the Assistant Jailor of Patna's Beur Jail Vashisht Rai, then on deputation at the ward in AIIMS.
The court also fined him Rs1,000[42] In May 2007, Shahabuddin was convicted of the abduction of the trader and CPI(ML) worker, Chhote Lal Gupta, in February 1999, who was never seen thereafter and is widely presumed to have been murdered.