Rajsamand murder: Raigar remanded in police custody

‘Victim didn’t have cross-community marital relations’

A stand against hate: Human rights activists stage a protest against the brutal killing of the labourer, in Kolkata on Friday.

Shambhu Lal Raigar, who allegedly hacked and burnt to death a 48-year-old Muslim labourer from West Bengal, Mohammed Afrazul, at Rajsamand in Rajasthan, was remanded in police custody for three days by a court on Friday. His minor nephew, who made a video of the incident, was sent to the juvenile home.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Rajsamand passed the order when Raigar, 38, was produced there amid tight security. The public prosecutor sought police remand for five days with the plea that the interrogation of the accused was continuing and the investigating officer had to confirm the chain of events.

Though Raigar claimed that he committed the murder because he felt threatened by the victim’s family, the police have rejected this. The accused has sought to link the offence with a six-year-old incident when a girl from his locality eloped with a man from West Bengal and he went to rescue her.

The investigators also doubt Raigar’s rants about the “cross-community marital relations” and have found no such history of Afrazul, who was married and had three grown-up daughters. According to the police, there was nothing to directly link Afrazul with the reasons cited by the accused for the murder.

Udaipur Range Inspector-General of Police Anand Srivastava said no medical history of Raigar being “mentally unstable” had been revealed so far, though he was without a permanent source of livelihood for the last one year, after his marble trading work was affected by demonetisation.

The police have detained over 10 persons for questioning, while trying to find out if the act was committed as part of a conspiracy. Mr. Srivastava said the accused did not have any criminal background.

Raigar has been found to be heavily influenced by the propaganda material circulated by right wing organisations on the social media, though he had no formal membership of any of these outfits. Police said his interrogation had revealed that he regularly exchanged hate messages and videos on the social media sites.