Rupam Pathak

Patna, Jan. 7: The Purnea-based English journalist Navlesh Pathak was in constant touch with Rupam Pathak, the school principal who stabbed BJP legislator Rajkishore Keshari to death. He even called her on Tuesday, the day the MLA was murdered.

Investigation revealed that Navlesh, who was remanded to 14-day judicial custody today, talked with Rupam over phone for 131 times from November till the murder of the MLA. “His (Navlesh’s) call details revealed that he had talked to Rupam on her cellphone even on Tuesday,” said an investigating officer.

Deputy inspector-general (DIG) of Purnea range Amit Kumar said Navlesh was produced before the chief judicial magistrate of Purnea civil court, D.L. Prasad, amid tight security. After recording his statement, the judge sent him on judicial remand.

“The police picked up Navlesh for interrogation after his name figured in the FIR lodged at the Khajanchi Haat police station by the slain MLA’s nephew,” Prasad said, adding that while two persons were named as accused, the third one is yet to be identified.

A host of senior police officers, including DIG and Purnea superintendent of police Nayyar Hasnain Khan, quizzed the journalist for several hours before he was produced in the court.

DIG Kumar said Navlesh cooperated with the police during interrogation and provided some vital clues. He, however, refused to disclose more information.

A police officer associated with the investigation told The Telegraph that Rupam’s car had been recovered. However, raids were on to arrest its driver, who had dropped Rupam near the ancestral house of the MLA before his murder.

Sources said Navlesh had accompanied Rupam to the MLA’s house in the car. He disappeared after the prime accused in the case entered Keshari’s house.

Though Navlesh confessed to have been in touch with Rupam, he denied to have plotted the murder of the MLA. He insisted that he had helped Rupam when she was in dire need. He also disclosed to the police that his wife, Roma Pathak, worked as an assistant teacher in Rupam’s school.

Navlesh had first reported about Rupam’s alleged sexual exploitation by Keshari and his personal assistant, Bipin Rai.

Rupam’s husband, Ashok Kumar Pathak, who asserted yesterday that he would back his wife in her fight for justice, today told The Telegraph over the phone from Imphal that he would come to Purnea on January 15 after the examinations of his two children were over.

“At present, my son and daughter are having their final examinations. They are studying and they should not skip a year. ‘Jo hona tha, woh to ho gaya hai’ (what had to happen has happened),” he said.

Rupam, the prime accused in the MLA murder case, is in judicial custody. She was pursuing her PhD in Hindi literature from Patna University.

She had already completed her thesis — Hindi Ghazal Ka Safarnama: Bhartendu Haris Chandra Se Dushyant Kumar Tak — and submitted it at the university last year.

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