2 men held for Karni Sena leader's murder

Two shooters allegedly involved in the killing of Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi, chief of Hindu right-wing group Shri Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena (SRRKS), in Jaipur last week were arrested in Chandigarh late on Saturday, hours after one of their close associates was nabbed in Haryana, police officers aware of the developments said on Sunday.

- Sanjeev K Jha

The accused — Rohit Rathore, 24, from Makrana, and Nitin Fauji, 26, from Haryana’s Mahendragarh — were nabbed from a liquor shop in Chandigarh’s sector 22 during a joint operation carried out by a special investigation team (SIT) of Rajasthan Police and crime branch of Delhi Police. A third person who helped them evade police, Uddham Singh, 23, was also arrested

Ravindra Singh Yadav, the special commissioner of police (crime), Delhi Police, said the team was tracking them via their social media and mobile phone usage.

“Fauji and Rathore were the shooters, who shot at least 27 times on Sena chief, while Singh — one of Fauji’s old friends — arranged the vehicle from them in Hisar and accompanied them to Manali in their escape. Fauji and Rathore had entered Gogamedi’s home on the pretext of meeting him and, after talking for a few minutes, they opened fire at Gogamedi. They also shot dead their accomplice Naveen Shekhawat, through whom they had secured access to the Karni Sena chief’s residence,” he said.

The Capital’s police began tracking the men after Rajasthan police on Tuesday, hours after the murder, sent them an alert that the men were headed towards Delhi from Diwana in Rajasthan roadways bus. “But when our boys could not find the duo in the said bus, they asked the bus staff about them. When the bus staff informed that Fauji and Rathore had de-boarded the bus at Dharuhera, we launched our manual and technical surveillance there. It was found that they had taken an auto from there to Rewari. As per technical inputs, they were found to have taken a train from Rewari at 5am on Wednesday and de-boarded at Hisar three hours later,” he said.