BJP worker arrested for murder of Mandsaur civic body chairman

BHOPAL\MANDSAUR: The Madhya Pradesh police arrested a ‘BJP worker’ for the murder of Mandsaur municipality chairman Prahalad Bandhwar, 54, who was shot dead Thursday. Besides Manish Bairagi, a declared history-sheeter, the police arrested the person who had supplied the pistol, Mandsaur superintendent of police Tushar Kant Vidyarthi told the media Saturday.

Vidyarthi said the motive behind the murder appears to be Bandhwar’s failure to return ~25,000 to Bairagi and his alleged inability to keep promises he had made to the BJP worker during the elections.

Talking to the media in the presence of police officers after his arrest, Bairagi sought to explain the reason behind committing the crime. “My mother was ill and I needed the ~25,000 but he (Bandhwar) was making excuses and was not returning it. When my mother died, I decided I would kill him. I had worked wholeheartedly for him during the elections three and a half years ago and he had made several promises to me. He did not keep even one of those promises,” Bairagi said before he was taken away by the police officers.

The SP said Bairagi pur- chased the pistol from one Ajay Jat, and targeted Bhandhwar at a tea shop where the latter often went. Bairagi had walked up to Bhandhwar, touched his feet, and chanted ‘Jai Siya Ram’ before opening fire on him — he shot him once in the stomach and twice on his head, police said.

He then fled on foot as the motorcycle he had come into failed to start, eyewitnesses have told police. Bairagi, who had cases under the NDPS and Arms Acts and an attempt to murder case registered against him, managed to reach Udaipur in Rajasthan. He was on his way to Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh when he was arrested.

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