2 students among 7 held for SP leader’s murder

Police have arrested seven persons of a gang, including two students, involved in the murder of Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Ajay Barnwal and his brother Vijay in Saidpur police station area of Ghazipur district on Friday.

Barnwal, state vice-president of SP Vyapar Sabha, and Vijay were shot outside their house in Saidpur by unidentified bike-borne assailants when they were returning home from their jewellery shop. The assailants also robbed the brothers of a bag filled with jewellery and money. Both died while being taken to Varanasi for treatment.

Police on Sunday arrested seven persons identified as Nanhe alias Aman Pratap Singh, Jitendra Jaiswal alias Baba, Mohit Verma, Pradeep Seth, all residents of Saidpur, Kittu alias Roshan Gutka, Sunny Singh alias Rohit and Ashutosh Tripathi, all residents of Varanasi.

Additional DG (Law and Order) Arun Kumar said the police had recovered the money and jewellery which was robbed. He said the police also recovered three motorbikes, six pistols and 15 mobile phones from them.

Kumar said they were operating in a gang and had been involved in several other crimes in eastern UP. He said Nanhe was a student of BTech at a Meerut-based engineering college while Sunny was a student of BTech at Rajiv Gandhi Technical College in Bhopal. He said Nanhe had also killed a local leader Rinku Singh Yadav in Saadat police station area on December 1 and another jeweller Bachche Lal in Karanda police station area on October 29.

Kumar said Pradeep Seth had planned the murder of Barnwal brothers and hired the gang for the robbery and murder.

He said the process of opening historysheets of young criminals, which had been halted because of an Allahabad High Court order, will be restarted as per the guidelines laid down by the high court so that the police could keep an eye on their activities.

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