Three alleged sharpshooters were arrested from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on Sunday night in connection with the murder of Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari’s personal assistant Chandranath Rath three days before the swearing-in.
Police sources identified Raj Singh as the main shooter and Mayank Raj Mishra and Vicky Maurya as the “supporting shooters”.
It is not yet known who hired the killers, the police said on Monday.
Uttar Pradesh police sources said Singh had fled to Sambhal following the shooting before proceeding to Lucknow. He was travelling from Lucknow to Varanasi via Ayodhya when a team of Bengal and Uttar Pradesh police intercepted him on Sunday night, sources said.
Mishra and Maurya were nabbed from somewhere between Ballia and Baxar in Bihar, the sources said.
Police sources said Mishra and Maurya belonged to the Onkar Singh gang that was allegedly behind the murder of Bihar gangster Chandan Mishra. Last year, Chandan Mishra was gunned down inside Paras Hospital in Patna.
An officer who is part of the Rath murder probe said the trio involved in the operation were “hardcore professionals” and worked for money, with “no personal motive”.
“They just kill for money. Mishra and Maurya used to work in Delhi and later joined the Onkar Singh gang,” the officer said.
Sources said the police zeroed in on them by tracing their electronic imprints.
“Singh is a contract killer from Ballia, who has been living in Buxar for the past few months. The special investigation team formed to arrest the killers managed to track them because they made UPI payments at several places,” a police officer said
in Lucknow.
Investigators suspect the involvement of more people in the murder and have sent teams to Odisha and Jharkhand.
The trio were produced in the Barasat court on Monday and remanded in police custody for 13 days.
Public prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee said the prosecution had sought police remand for 14 days, but the court allowed 13.
Besides being charged for murder, organised crime, criminal conspiracy and common intention, they have also been accused of tampering with evidence, Chatterjee said.
According to police records, Singh is a graduate of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi. Known for working for political leaders, he had allegedly killed an egg seller a few years ago. Thereafter, he started working as a contract killer. His family members live in Varanasi and Buxar.
“The police had come to Singh’s house in Ballia first, but the gate was locked from the outside. His neighbours said he doesn’t live there. Later, the police nabbed him in Ayodhya when he was coming towards Varanasi from Lucknow,” a resident of Ballia told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
Singh’s elder sister Deep Shikha told reporters in Ballia that the police were trying to implicate her brother in the case.
“He had gone to Ayodhya along with our mother for darshan at the Ram temple. Some cops took my brother away,” she said. “He never went to Calcutta. He is with the BJP and was preparing to contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.”
Singh had contested the municipal elections from Ballia’s Ward 15 a few years ago and lost. His black SUV, still parked outside his house in Anand Nagar Colony of Ballia town, has a BJP flag on its bonnet. His designation, as mentioned on the car’s rear windscreen, is Uttar Pradesh general secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha.
Singh’s mother, Jamwanti Singh, a postmaster at Rasra post office in Ballia district, said: “We went to an event hosted by an MLC in Lucknow on Saturday. We stayed at a guesthouse there. We were at the Ayodhya temple around 8pm on Sunday before heading to a restaurant. When he hit the road again, the police intercepted us and took away my son. They kept us in a police station and later told me they were taking him to Bengal.”