Patna, Feb. 7: The Patna police today claimed to have cracked the murder case of contractor Jitendra Kumar Rai with the arrest of his younger brother Kamlesh Rai and business partner Lalit Mishra.
Rai, whose body was recovered from a forest near a glue factory in Digha, was killed by his brother and partner for money, the police said.
Of the three brothers, Jitendra was eldest in the family.
The deceased was a local contractor involved in the supply of stone chips and sand meant for construction.
City superintendent of police (SP) Manu Maharaj said: “The two brothers (Jitendra and Kamlesh) and Lalit were involved in a money laundering business in addition to their usual of construction material supply trade. Lalit owed a big amount to Jitendra. Kamlesh too had given a lot of money to Lalit and both brothers wanted their money back,” the officer said.
In the meantime, Jitendra had a dealing with Lalit and the latter gave him a piece of land instead of the money he owed him.
“With Jitendra having the land now, this caused a major rift between the two brothers. Kamlesh now started forcing Lalit to return his money. After a while, both of them hatched a plan to kill Jitendra after which Lalit would be free from the debt and Kamlesh would the land. This led to the hatching of murder plan,” the City SP said.
On Friday evening, Jitendra was called by the duo and he was then murdered with a sickle in the Father Bagicha area of Digha.
“The plan was to carry his body and the motorbike to the area near the glue factory. There is a ditch in the same area and Jitendra’s body was thrown into the same. But they could not throw the motorbike and left in the Father Bagicha area. Kamlesh named one builder, Navin Kumar Singh, as an accused in murder of his brother. He did the same to fox the police. A special team was formed soon after the murder and they managed to dig out the truth in very short time. The duo were arrested on Sunday and they spilled the beans during the interrogation,” the City SP said.
A resident of the Azadnagar in the Nakta Diara area, Rai had gone on his motorbike to the A.G Colony area on Friday evening to meet Navin Kumar Singh, Kamlesh had told the police while lodging the FIR.
At around 6.30 pm on Friday, Jitendra left his home.
When he did not return until Saturday morning, his family members blocked the Ashiana-Digha Road as well as the road leading to the Alpana Cinema.
The locals also had joined them and the blockade lasted for eight hours.
The police said that both Kamlesh and Lalit were being interrogated for further information about any possible involvement of other people.