Group accused of 2016 killing of RSS leader prime suspect
LUDHIANA PASTOR’S MURDER Use of .32 bore pistol, 2 bikeborne men and all murders on Saturday common link
Chandigarh A pattern similar to last year’s unsolved high-profile killings in the state is emerging after initial police investigation into the killing of pastor of Sunil Masih, 50, in Ludhiana on Saturday.
Police are also firming up the theory that the same gang that murdered RSS state vicepresident Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja (retd) in August 2016 is involved.
The same gang is also suspected to be behind the murder of Namdhari sect head’s mother Chand Kaur in April 2016, and the murders of two Dera Sacha Sauda followers in Khanna and Shiv Sena leader Durga Prasad Gupta.
All these three cases are now under Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) investigation after Punjab Police could not make any headway and cited the presence of ‘a foreign hand’ behind the systematic killings of the leaders.
“The modus operandi of the crime in all these cases is similar. Like in other cases, he was also killed point blank at very close range by the two bikeborne assailants,” said a senior police officer handling the investigation, in Chandigarh.
THE COMMON THREAD
Police claim that the use of .32 bore pistol in the killings, involvement of two bike-borne men in every crime and the fact that each murder was carried out on a ‘Saturday’, with the intent to create communal tension were strong markers pointing towards the involvement of the same gang.
CBI TEAM IN LUDHIANA TODAY
Sources said a special team of (CBI) that is dealing with these cases of organised killings was also apprised of the details of pastor’s killing.
This team led by a DSP is sitting in Jalandhar since September 2016, when the probe of the RSS leader’s killing was handed over to the CBI.
A CBI team will also visit Ludhiana on Tuesday. Source said state DGP Suresh Arora will also visit the crime site tomorrow.
The SIT that was formed on Sunday analysed the CCTV footages of the pastor’s killing.