NEW DELHI, May 8 (UPI) -- A member of India's Parliament Tuesday was sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1999 abduction of a rival who has not yet been found and is feared dead.

A court in the eastern state of Bihar sentenced Mohammad Shahabuddin, a member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal party which is part of a Congress-led coalition that governs the world's largest democracy.

Police think the kidnap victim, communist party member Chote Lal Gupta, was killed, India's Statesman newspaper reported.

The ruling against Shahabuddin said he was found guilty of "kidnapping with intent to murder." Shahabuddin is already under a two-year jail sentence for an alleged attack on another political rival.

Shahabuddin faces several more criminal charges including murder, kidnapping and attempted murder. The BBC reported about one in every six lawmakers at the national and state level in India faces criminal charges.

Police believe Shahabuddin and two others kidnapped Gupta, who went missing in February 1999, the BBC said. The other two have not been identified and Shahabuddin was the only one named in the police report.