A fast track sessions court on Wednesday convicted Prabhu Shankar Agarwal, an owner of Haldiram’s fast-food chain, and five others for conspiring to murder a tea stall owner in 2005.

The court will on Friday announce the sentence for the crime, which carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Agarwal had hired a contract killer to eliminate tea stall owner Satyanarayan Thakur for refusing to accept Rs 4 lakh for his 170 sq ft property, which was blocking the entrance to a food plaza he planned to construct in north Kolkata’s Burrabazar area.

It’s another matter that the killers shot Thakur’s 22-year-old nephew Pramod Sharma instead, while he was sleeping inside the stall one morning in March 2005. Sharma was shot in the leg but survived.

Agarwal, who was present in court, was taken into police custody and then to Alipore Central jail. The contract killer, Gopal Tewary, and his associates have also been taken into custody.

Sharma still runs the shop with his uncle.