Purnea, May 6: Police today claimed to have cracked the missing case of Rupauli MLA Bima Bharti’s personal secretary Santosh Mandal with a person confessing to his murder.

Purnea superintendent of police Kim said: “We arrested one Birendra Mandal today who confessed that Santosh was killed and his body was disposed of in a tributary of the Ganga in the Kurshela riverine area in Katihar district. We have also recovered the SUV used in committing the crime and the deceased’s bloodstained shirt. We had arrested Bharti’s husband Awdhesh Mandal and his accomplice Kishore Mandal earlier. Since the body was disposed of in the river, it would be difficult to recover it but we have adequate evidence in support of the crime committed by Awdhesh and his accomplices.”

Santosh, a close aide of the MLA for the past five years, was last seen around a fortnight back.

Birendra, 30, a resident of Akbarpur, about 385km northeast of Patna, told the police that Awdhesh and his eight accomplices had kidnapped Santosh on the night of April 23 and slit his neck at Kurshela.

MLA Bharti, who had all praise for Santosh, had blamed her husband Awdhesh for kidnapping him.

Santosh, an active worker of the JD(U), used to manage the political and personal affairs of the MLA. As Santosh’s mother Rekha Devi is the village head of Vijay Lalganj, he also used to look after the works of a mukhiya.

Bharti had raised her voice before chief minister Nitish Kumar when he was in Purnea a week ago. She had prayed to Nitish to save the life of Santosh. The tussle between Awdhesh, the head of Bhawanipur block, and Bharti has been going on for quite some time. Bharti had filed a divorce case in a local court on September 1, 2012, which is still pending verdict. She had also accused him of poisoning her son in October last year.