The younger son of real estate tycoon Deepak Bhardwaj and a lawyer, arrested for their alleged role in his sensational murder, were on Wednesday remanded to six days in police custody by a Delhi court.
Metropolitan Magistrate Prashant Sharma remanded Nitesh, son of local BSP leader Bhardwaj, and lawyer Baljeet Singh Shehrawat in police custody till April 16.
Both Nitesh, 31, and Sehrawat, 51, were arrested on Tuesday and the police has alleged that Nitesh had given a Rs five crore contract to Shehrawat who in turn had entrusted the job to a self-styled godman Pratibhanand. Pratibhanand is absconding.
“The accused persons were arrested on April 9. Allegations against them are serious in nature. Investigation is still at a nascent stage,” the court noted.
“It is specified in the application that co-accused persons have to be traced, SIM cards used by the accused persons have to be unearthed, amounts involved in this case have to be recovered, raids on the possible hideouts of co-accused persons at Dehradun, Solan, Vrindawan and Haridwar have to be made and motives of accused persons have to be investigated vis-à-vis their criminal conspiracy in offence in question.
“The said aspects of this case need detailed investigation. Therefore, the present application moved by the investigating officer is allowed. Accused persons, namely Nitesh and Baljeet Singh, are sent to six days police custody remand,” the magistrate said.
Seeking six days police remand of both the accused, the police said the investigation in the case is at an initial stage and they needed to interrogate them to establish the chain of events which led to the crime.
While seeking Nitesh’s remand, police told the court that there must have been a “strong motive” behind the crime as he allegedly planned to kill his father and they are yet to ascertain the motive.
It also said Nitesh had used a mobile phone during the relevant time and had destroyed it after the crime and the agency needed to recover the SIM cards which the accused persons were using at that time and also establish the motive behind the murder.
The prosecution said Shehrawat was required to be interrogated in custody as he is aware of the whereabouts of the absconding godman and could give important informations about him as Pratibhanand used to visit Shehrawat’s house here.
Police further said it had to trace the source and trail of the money transacted in the crime.
Opposing the police’s plea for custody, senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, appearing for Nitesh, argued there was no ground for arresting the accused as they were cooperating in the investigation.
Gupta said “the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) had yesterday revealed on camera the motive of the crime and now the prosecutor is saying that they have to ascertain the motive behind it.”
“This is totally a fake argument,” he said adding police have to satisfy the court as to why they have arrested both the accused.
Gupta also said there was no evidence against the accused and if the police wanted to retrieve their call records, they could get it from the mobile service providers.
