A West Bengal court Monday convicted five men for murdering a doctor who had been fighting corruption in a district hospital.

District and sessions judge Raghunath Bhattacharjee delivered the verdict against Apurba Sanyal, Subharanjan Khara, Sunil Ganguly, Abbas Ali Karigar and Rahamat Ali at Krishnanagar, headquarters of Nadia district, 120 km from here.

The quantum of punishment will be pronounced Tuesday.

The victim, Chandan Sen, was the general surgeon of the Ranaghat sub-divisional hospital in Nadia district. He was murdered on the night of February 26, 2003.

Of the five men convicted, Khara and Ali are doctors.

Two other accused - Sunil Ganguly's son Gautam Ganguly and Subharanjan Khara's wife Arundhuti Khara - were acquitted.

The prosecution said a few hospital employees had hatched a conspiracy to murder Sen, 52, due to his crusade against corruption and drug running at the institution.

Sen's body was found in a pond adjoining Sunil Ganguly's house. Ganguly was a clerk at the hospital and Sen had gone to his house to attend a dinner party hosted by him on his retirement.

The death was caused by smothering and by means of a plastic bag or similar item, the autopsy said.

The autopsy, which also confirmed 11 injury marks on Sen's body, was a major blow for the Nadia police, which had initially registered a case of unnatural death.

The case was then handed over to the state Crime Investigation Department.