Police now searching for a `Swami’ in Bhardwaj murder case

April 03, 2013 07:34 am | Updated November 16, 2021 10:06 pm IST - New Delhi

Three of the alleged killers of BSP leader Deepak Bhardwaj are being produced at the Patiala House Court, in New Delhi. File photo: Rajeev Bhatt

Three of the alleged killers of BSP leader Deepak Bhardwaj are being produced at the Patiala House Court, in New Delhi. File photo: Rajeev Bhatt

The police are learnt to have raided several places in Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in search of godman Swami Pratimanand whose name cropped up during the interrogation of Purshottam, one of the alleged shooters of realtor Deepak Bhardwaj.

Sources said the police are making several efforts to trace Swami Pratimanand, who, it is alleged, had a property dispute with the murdered businessman over a land parcel in Haryana. However, it is yet to be established whether he was a small cog in the wheel of conspiracy behind the murder or the main conspirator himself.

“During interrogation Purushottam named Swami and said that he worked as a driver for him,” said a source, adding that the claimed amount paid to Purushottam and another alleged shooter Sunil Mann is being verified. It is alleged that Swami had agreed to pay Rs. 1 crore for the murder but later the deal was finalised at Rs. 30 lakh, a part of which was paid in advance to buy weapons.

It is also learnt that one of Mr. Bhardwaj’s lawyer, who was familiar with most of his land deals, was questioned on Wednesday to check the veracity of the claims made by Purushottam on the disputed property between Mr. Bhardwaj and the suspect.

The 30-acre disputed land in Bahadurgarh is said to be worth crores.

Purushottam and Sunil along with Amit, the driver of the Skoda car that carried the assailants to the “Nitesh Kunj” farmhouse where Mr. Bhardwaj was gunned down last month, were arrested on Monday. They were remanded to 10 days in police custody by a Delhi court on Tuesday.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.