Raiganj, Jan. 6: A 25-year-old has been arrested on charges of murdering a local video photographer a month ago and has been brought to Raiganj from Chandannagar in Hooghly district on transit remand.

Biplab Chhetri, who has 21 cases pending against him including five murder charges, was arrested on Sunday. Today, he was produced before the chief judicial magistrate of Raiganj, Rajiv Saha, who remanded him in police custody for 10 days. He will be produced in court on January 16.

This evening, the police recovered a pipegun and some ammunition from Chhetri’s house in Ramendrapally here.

Chhetri and his six accomplices had killed Biswajay Ghosh, 25, at Ramendrapally on November 27. Around 9.30pm that day, the criminals first hit the photographer of the local cable channel with stones and then shot him thrice. Biswajay’s body was found near a pond at Milanpally, about 400m from where he had been murdered, the police said.

The victim’s wife filed an FIR the next day naming seven persons. The police had begun the investigation but were clueless. Even a dog squad from Siliguri failed to get any lead on to the criminals.

After the arrest on January 3, the CID produced Chhetri before the chief judicial magistrate in an Alipore court on Monday and brought him to Raiganj yesterday on transit remand. On December 9, inspector-general of police of north Bengal K.L. Tamta had referred the case to the CID.

Chhetri’s lawyer Debabrata Sarkar contested the CID’s plea for police remand in court today, arguing that the cops had tortured him and forced him to confess to the crime. But the judge rejected the defence counsel’s plea.