India, Feb. 28 -- Ten people have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2006 murder of Pankaj Trivedi, a NRI professional, after he sought to expose misappropriation of foreign aid received for the 2001 Gujarat earthquake victims by individuals in an influential socio-religious sect.

Trivedi, a 43-year-old professional from Cincinnati, was ambushed by his assailants near Gujarat College. They beat him with baseball bats and iron rods, and fled the scene, leaving him fatally injured.

The prosecution argued that his murder was linked to his efforts to expose financial discrepancies in Swadhyay Parivar, a spiritual and socio-religious movement founded by the late Pandurang Shastri Athawale. Trivedi had been associated with the moveme...