Rohtas police have arrested two persons for the murder of Dainik Bhaskar journalist Dharmendra Kumar Singh.

Inspector-general (Patna zone) Nayyar Hasnain Khan said Radhika Raman Raiand Manish Singh were arrested during raids conducted on their hideouts in Rohtas district, around 140km southwest of Patna, on Monday night.

Manish, the police said, is from Varanasi while Rai is a Rohtas resident. Manish was on the wanted list of the Bihar police in three other cases lodged in Rohtas district.

Khan said the raid team seized the motorbike used at the time of the murder. "Raids are on to apprehend the other accused," he said.

Dharmendra, who wrote on illegal mining in Rohtas district, was outside a tea stall at Amra Talab on Saturday morning when three men on a motorbike shot him dead.

The police headquarters had set up a special investigation team under deputy inspector-general (Shahabad range) Mohammad Rahman to probe the case.

"Instructions have been given to the officers concerned to investigate the case on a priority basis. Chargesheets will be filed in the court at the earliest," zonal IG Khan said.

The police have failed to nab any of the four named accused in the case. Sujeet Singh, the alleged sharp shooter who fired at Dharmendra on a Rs 5-lakh contract from stone-crusher mafia lord Pappu Singh, is out of the cops' reach.

Dharmendra had invited Pappu's wrath for filing reports against the illegal mining in areas falling under Sasaram Mufassil police station in Rohtas district. Source close to Dharmendra's family said Pappu had threatened the journalist about a month ago as well.

His wife Rinku Singh has demanded a CBI probe. "I have doubts that the local police will unravel the truth behind my husband's killing. Instead of nabbing the culprits, some police officers are trying to give a different colour to the incident," she said, in a possible reference to Rohtas superintendent of police Manavjeet Singh Dhillon's statement on Saturday describing Dharmendra as a person with criminal antecedents. The cop, sources said, had been "pulled up" for levelling the allegation before the probe had begun.

On the day of the murder, Dharmendra's father had said he was killed for exposing the "police-illegal mining mafia nexus". Rinku said she would move court against such police officers to expose their links with the stone-crusher mafia.

Journalists from Rohtas, Kaimur, Bhojpur and Buxar districts also staged a dharna in front of the Rohtas district magistrate's office on Tuesday to vent their ire against the murder.

"We not only condemn the incident but also urge senior police officers to deliver justice to the slain journalist's family," said a local journalist.