Pankaj Gupta, Treasurer of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lohardaga district unit was shot dead on Sunday, 11 March, at an eatery in the Nagri police station area of Ranchi, Jharkhand.
According to a report by The Indian Express, the shooting was caught on a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera located outside the eatery, and the footage has since gone viral.
Upon the insistence of Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das and DGP DK Pandey, Ranchi SSP Kuldeep Dwivedi has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe into Gupta’s murder, reported The Telegraph.
Headed by the Ranchi rural SP, the SIT will consist of the DSPs of Khelari and HQ-II, officers-in-charge of Ratu, Mandar, Chanho, Tupudana and Nagri thanas, members of CID, the forensic science lab and an anti-terrorist squad, DIG in-charge of South Chotanagpur Saket Kumar Singh told The Telegraph.
Early investigations, The Indian Express reported, have revealed that Gupta had visited Nagri in connection with a plot that he had bought some time ago.
Gupta, who was in his 40s and lived at Shastri Chowk in Lohardaga, reportedly took a train and reached the Piska-Nagri station around 8:30 am on Sunday, following which he visited an eatery near the station. While he was waiting at the eatery, two unidentified persons, one of whom was wearing a helmet, approached him from behind and fired bullets at him, reported The Indian Express. The bullets hit him on the neck.
The duo then reportedly turned and fled.
According to The Telegraph, angry residents of Ranchi, criticising the police for the deterioration of law and order in the city, blocked the Ranchi-Nagri road, which is about 30 km from the main city.
Succumbing to pressure, DIG in-charge of South Chotanagpur, Saket Kumar Singh announced a cash reward of Rs 50,000 for anyone with information on the shooters, The Telegraph’s report added.
The police also said they had learned that the land Gupta had purchased was near the station and that he was set on getting a boundary constructed around it.
“We will check his call records and also investigate if he had enemies in Lohardaga,” the police told The Indian Express.
Saying that it was possible that the assailants were hired hit-men, the police told The Telegraph that a post-mortem was conducted at RIMS.
(With inputs from The Indian Express and The Telegraph)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)