Suvendu Adhikari PA murder case: Shooter Rajkumar arrested from UP's Muzaffarnagar
Suvendu Adhikari PA murder case: The shooter, who has been identified as Rajkumar, was arrested from Muzaffarnagar of Uttar Pradesh. He will be produced before a CBI court in Kolkata on Tuesday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested the shooter, identified as Rajkumar, in connection with the murder of West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's personal assistant (PA) from Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar, said officials on Monday.
He was held by the central probe agency, along with assistance of the Uttar Pradesh Police. The agency has also secured his transit remand and he will be produced before a special CBI court in Kolkata on Tuesday.
Chandranath Rath was the most trusted aide of Adhikari. He was shot dead on the night of May 6, two days after the results for West Bengal assembly elections were declared. Rath was travelling to Kolkata, but was killed in Madhyamgram's Doltala area in North 24 Parganas district when some motorcycle-borne assailants shot him at a point-blank range.
Following his murder, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted, with Adhikari promising Rath's family that justice will be served. Later, the case was handed over to the CBI.
It should be noted that before Rath, three men - Mayank Raj Mishra, Vicky Maurya, and Raj Singh - were arrested. While Mishra and Maurya were held from Bihar's Buxar, Singh was arrested from UP's Ballia.
BJP vs TMC over Rath's murder
Immediately after Rath's murder, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had blamed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for the incident. The saffron party had described Rath's murder a result of it sweeping the Bengal elections, where it won over 200 seats to oust Mamata Banerjee from power.
Many BJP leaders had also linked Rath's murder to TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee. However, the TMC had refuted the charges and demanded that the accused must be arrested and justice must be served to Rath's family.
"We demand the strongest possible action in this matter, including a court-monitored CBI probe so that those responsible are identified and brought to justice without delay," Banerjee's party had said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter).
The police, meanwhile, believe that eight persons were involved in the killing. They said the accused who have been held are repeatedly changing statements. "The accused are being questioned to ascertain how they received precise information regarding Rath's movements and who else was present at the crime scene," an officer told news agency PTI.
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