Delhi/Lucknow, Dec. 27: A second person has been arrested in connection with the suspected murder of university lecturer Kavita Chaudhary, whose body is yet to be found.
Triloki Singh, an associate of prime accused Ravindra Pradhan who has confessed to the killing, was picked up last night from a house in the Paharganj area of central Delhi by a joint team of Delhi and Meerut police.
Pradhan surrendered to the police on Monday and said in his confession he was assisted by an accomplice in murdering the 29-year-old lecturer of Meerut’s Chaudhary Charan Singh University.
Several of Kavita’s letters name Triloki as a crucial intermediary to Pradhan, and the police suspect he could have assisted in carrying out the murder.
“Pradhan stayed at Singh’s place after the murder. We are sure about that. We are still, however, investigating whether he also assisted in the murder,” inspector Arvind Sharma of Meerut police said.
Triloki, the police said, is the pradhan of Dhanera Kirat village in western Uttar Pradesh. “He is also wanted in two other cases in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh,” deputy commissioner of police (central Delhi) Alok Kumar said.
The Meerut police team left this morning with Triloki.
A third accused, Yogesh Pradhan, is already in Tihar jail after being arrested in Delhi last month for a car theft. Meerut police will seek his custody tomorrow.
Kavita’s body, which Pradhan said had been dumped in Dadri canal near Ghaziabad, has not been found yet. “With two more persons under police custody, the police are expected to have corroborative evidence. The probe is on the right direction,” Uttar Pradesh principal secretary (home) S.K. Agarwal said here.
The police today searched and sealed room No. 10 on the Chaudhary Charan Singh University campus, where the lecturer lived. She went missing in October, allegedly killed by her partners in a sex-on-camera racket that involved several top politicians.
Md Merazuddin and Chaudhary Babulal, both of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, have resigned after their names figured in the sex racket.
