2 shooters arrested from Goa for INLD leader's murder

Two people have been arrested from Goa in connection with the killing of Indian National Lok Dal's Haryana unit president Nafe Singh Rathee, the police said on Monday.

Rathee and Indian National Lok Dal worker Jai Kishan were killed after multiple rounds were fired on their vehicle in Bahadurgarh in the state's Jhajjar district on February 25.

Ashish and Saurabh alias Sachin were arrested from Goa in a joint operation by the Haryana police's Special Task Force, the district police and the Delhi police's special cell, officials said.

The police officials told reporters in Jhajjar that a handler based abroad was giving the duo directions.

They were flown to Delhi from Goa and then taken to Jhajjar in the afternoon, police officials in the national capital said. They added that the duo was arrested from North Goa, where they were staying in a hotel.

A senior Delhi police official said Ashish, Saurabh, Nakul and Atul were the four who opened fire on Rathee and Kishan's vehicle on February 25.

A team of the Delhi Police's Special Cell (Southwestern Range) was involved in the operation in Goa, the official said.
Ashish and Saurabh -- residents of Delhi's Nangloi -- are associates of UK-based gangster Kapil Sangwan, who, through a purported social media post, took responsibility for killing Rathee.

An official in Delhi said Sangwan is involved in around two dozen cases of extortion, murder and attempt to murder, and had fled to the UK in 2020.

In the purported social media post, Sangwan had said that Rathee became the friend of his enemy Manjeet Mahal.

Sources said Sangwan had provided arms and ammunition to the four shooters. Nakul and Atul had left the hotel in Goa on Saturday, they said.

Sangwan's elder brother Jyoti Prakash alias Baba is lodged in the Tihar jail in a case of murder and could be interrogated by the Haryana Police in the coming days, another Delhi police official said.

Jhajjar's Superintendent of Police Arpit Jain said that both Ashish and Saurabh face criminal cases.

"They were arrested from Goa. We produced them before a court and they have been taken on an eight-day police remand. The car used in the crime by the four accused was earlier recovered near Rewari railway station," Jain said.

The motive behind the crime is being looked into, Jain told reporters in Jhajjar. Efforts to arrest the other two are on, he added.

"We have received evidence of foreign IPs and from technical evidence, it has come to the fore that a foreign-based handler was directing them," the officer said in response to a question.

The police said preliminary interrogation of the accused revealed that they were using cash payments while on the run.

They said the duo took a train from Rewari to Ahmedabad and went from Mumbai to Goa in a taxi.

The attack on the INLD leader, which came ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, drew sharp reactions from opposition parties in BJP-ruled Haryana.

The police in Jhajjar had named former BJP MLA Naresh Kaushik and others in the FIR registered after the incident. The case was registered under various Indian Penal Code sections, including 302 (murder), and the Arms Act.

In his police complaint, Rathee's nephew Rakesh had said five unidentified killers, who were following them in a car, came out and fired indiscriminately near the Barahi railway crossing.

Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij had recently said in the state assembly that the probe into the killings will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Senior INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala has accused the BJP-JJP government in Haryana of failing to provide security to Rathee, despite there being a threat to his life.