Patna, Jan 19 (IANS) The Bihar police are still clueless about the murder of IndiGo state head Rupesh Kumar Singh, even as seven days have passed since Singh was allegedly shot dead by criminals near the Shastri Nagar police station area in Patna.
A top official of Patna police said that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been set up which is probing the different angles into the case, including the deceased person’s involvement in government tenders and seizures of gold consignments from the Patna airport.
Vinay Tiwari, the City SP of Patna central, who is also heading the SIT, visited the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and the Water Resource Department on Monday and held meetings with the respective chief engineers. He asked them to provide all the details in a bid to make some inroads in the high profile case.
Sources said that these two departments generally offer Grade 3 tenders and their allotments are done at the district level. The Grade 3 tenders involve an amount of Rs 1 crore to Rs 3.5 crore.
After obtaining this information, separate SIT teams were dispatched to districts like Darbhanga, Madhubani, Chapra, Gopalganj, Sitamarhi etc. The teams will contact the executive engineers in these districts to know whether any contract was given to Singh’s brothers or any other relative.
The official said that Singh was involved in a heated exchange of words with a contractor of a parking lot at the Patna airport, who is being questioned. Besides, the SIT has also quizzed 50 employees and contractual workers in this connection.
Besides, the SIT has also sent a notice to a person who was sacked by Singh a couple of months ago. That person, a native of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, appeared before the Patna police on Monday.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had seized a gold consignment worth Rs 15 lakh from the Patna airport a couple of months ago. Sources have said that Singh had given a tip-off to the DRI about the smuggling of gold.
The alleged smugglers were about to take a flight to Delhi. They are currently lodged in the Patna Beur jail. The SIT has contacted the DRI in connection with the case. Its officials are likely to quiz the gold traffickers to find out whether they were involved in a conspiracy.
Bihar police are yet to crack this case due inconclusive evidences to identify the shooters. Hence, the have prepared a list of over 200 shooters and are conducting rais at their possible hideouts across the state. The official said that a massive operation has been launched to crack the case.
The SIT is facing hurdles due to the lack of CCTV footage. The deceased was a resident of Kushum Vila apartment at Punaichak. He was shot near the gate of his apartment. There was a CCTV camera installed there but it was not working. The police have obtained CCTV footages from the adjoining shops in the market, but the shooters or their bikes are not clearly visible in them.
Jitendra Kumar, ADG (headquarters) of Bihar police, told IANS that several teams have been formed under the SIT to crack this case.
“We are very close to reaching the actual culprits. The case will be cracked very soon,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, the president of Jan Adhikar Party (JAP), has claimed that the SIT is just misleading the people of Bihar.
“The police are still clueless about the case. Big players are involved in the murder of Rupesh Singh. He has been eliminated under a deep conspiracy and the state government is trying to save the culprits,” Yadav said.
“The state government should put all information extracted from the phone of Rupesh Singh in public domain. A minister in the current government had reportedly borrowed money from Rupesh Singh for government tender worth Rs 2,000 crore. The state government should unveil the name of that minister,” Yadav said.
Madan Mohan Jha, the state president of Congress, said that he has met with the deceased person’s family in Saran district.
“The SIT is unable to trace the shooters involved in the murder of Rupesh Singh. The family members of the deceased have zero expectation from this government,” Jha said.
–IANS
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