2 more held, attackers paid for ‘2611’ number plate: Cops
Sachin Saini
JAIPUR: Rajasthan Police on Friday arrested two more people for allegedly conspiring to kill a 47-year-old Hindu tailor in Udaipur earlier this week. Three more people have been detained for interrogation in connection with the murder, said police.
On June 28, Riyaz Akhtari and Gaus Mohammed murdered Kanhaiya Lal with sharp knives because the latter had backed controversial comments by BJP member Nupur Sharma on Prophet Mohammed. The two also posted online a grisly video of the crime claiming responsibility for the murder. Both the accused have since been arrested and shifted to the high-security Ajmer Central Jail.
The case is being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with the support of the Anti-terrorist Squad (ATS) and Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police.
The two persons arrested on Friday were identified as Mohsin and Asif. “They were co-conspirators of the murder of Kanhaiya and are being interrogated,” said Udaipur IGP Praful Kumar, adding that a court in Udaipur later granted NIA their transit remand.
Public prosecutor Kapil Todawat said Akhtari and Mohammed will be produced before an NIA court in Jaipur on Saturday, as per the orders of a District and Sessions Court. The court also directed the Rajasthan Police to hand over the case diary to NIA.
The police on Friday revealed that Akhtari paid extra money to get a number plate for his motorcycle that read RJ 27-AS-2611. Police are linking it to the date Mumbai faced its worst terror attack, on November 26, 2008, that left 166 people dead. After killing Lal, the two murderers escaped on this bike that is now lying in a police station in Udaipur. Regional transport officer (Udaipur) Prabhu Lal Bamaniya said Akhtari deliberately asked for the number 2611 and paid a sum of ₹1,000 through demand draft to the vehicle owner. The bike was registered on March 15, 2013. “This possibly indicates his radical mindset,” said a senior officer investigating the case. “The kind of Whatsapp groups he was running and contents he was posting, especially over the last few weeks, were to trigger communal tension. The video he had posted after the murder and the content he stated during interrogation was full of hatred and showed his radical mindset,” the officer added. Meanwhile, protests against Lal’s killing continued across various cities of Rajasthan. Traders in Kota and Bharatpur have also called for a bandh on Saturday. In Jaipur, Hanuman Chalisa will be chanted at Badi Chaupar on Sunday. On Friday, a delegation of the Jain community submitted a representation to the Udaipur collector, demanding appropriate security for the family of a businessman, against whom a police complaint has been filed for sharing a social media post in support of Sharma.
SHO, Savina police station, Ravindra Charan, said two policemen have been deployed outside the businessman’s house.