Four shooters were arrested on Friday for the murder of city-based builder Shailesh Kumar Singh at his warehouse in the Paharipad area on June 26. All of them were henchmen of gangster Pankaj Singh, lodged in Beur Central Jail.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaj said the four arrested shooters had been identified as Randhir Kumar Singh alias Naatu Singh, Vishal Kumar alias Vishal Singh, Rajesh Rajak and Harsh Vardhan. While the first three hail from Patna, Harsh is a resident of Ballia in Uttar Pradesh.

“Shailesh’s murder was plotted by one of his former business associates — Rajesh Yadav. A resident of Didarganj area, he is on the run. Yadav had lately turned envious of Shailesh’s rise and wanted to usurp his property by any means. He contacted Pankaj in the jail. The gangster asked him to meet his younger brother, Vishal Kumar Singh, and pay him a hefty sum as supari (murder contract). The amount paid was over Rs 3 lakh,” Maharaj said.

According to the police, Yadav paid Vishal Rs 50,000 as advance.

“Once the money was paid, Vishal arranged a meeting of Yadav with Randhir, a henchman of Pankaj. Yadav had been planning to murder Shailesh for a long time and had even planted one Dheeraj Kumar as Shailesh’s manager. On June 25, Dheeraj passed on information that Shailesh would be in the warehouse in the morning. The four shooters hid in another under-construction building on the night of June 25 and shot Shailesh the next morning,” the senior officer said.

Randhir was the first to be arrested. During interrogation, he confessed to the crime and provided information about the rest of the criminals.

“Four pistols, five magazines, bullets, a sports utility vehicle, a car and Rs 15,000 were recovered from them. We are trying to trace Yadav and Dheeraj,” Maharaj said.