DAYLIGHT SHOCKER: CONTRACTOR SHOT DEAD IN VARANASI

VARANASI : A 32-year-old contractor was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants on Sadar tehsil premises, under Cantonment police station area of Varanasi on Monday, police said. The killing drew sharp reaction from Samajwadi Party and Congress, who slammed UP’s BJP government over the law-and-order situation in the state.The police suspect the killing could be a result of a gang war. STF sources said the victim was a member of a gang and used to recover money and buy properties for them.

VARANASI : A 32-year-old contractor was shot dead by two bikeborne assailants on Sadar tehsil premises, under Cantonment police station area of Varanasi on Monday, police said.

The killing drew sharp reaction from Samajwadi Party and Congress, who slammed UP’s BJP government over the lawand-order situation in the state.

As per police, Nitesh Singh aka Bablu Singh of Lohia Nagar in Varanasi reached Sadar tehsil in his bulletproof SUV at around 10 am and parked it. Quoting eyewitnesses, police said as Bablu opened the door of his SUV, two persons fired seven shots at him. While Bablu died on the spot, the assailants managed to flee.

Soon after receiving the information, IG Vijay Singh Meena and SSP Sureshrao Anand Kulkarni rushed to the spot. The IG said police had been instructed to nab the culprits as soon as possible. According to the police, Bablu’s father belongs to Odara in Chandauli district and used to work in the forest department, from where he retired recently. Bablu was a contractor in the forest department and also owned a bus that operated on the Ghazipur-Varanasi route.

The police suspect the killing could be a result of a gang war. As per sources in the STF probing the case, the victim was a member of a gang and used to recover money and buy properties.

Bablu was a member of Indra Deo Singh alias BKD’s gang, who has a reward of Rs 50,000 on his arrest, sources said.

In a tweet in Hindi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said: “Criminals killed a person in Varanasi today (Monday) by shooting him. The BJP government has put the entire state machinery to suppress voices. For criminals, there are airconditioned rooms and the freedom to commit crime. The BJP government is a failure,” she said. The SP said the incident in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency just after the chief minister’s visit showed that the state was witnessing a “Jungle Raj”.