Rashid Pathan, 23, a resident of Zillani Manjil in Limbayat area of Surat, his neighbour Faizan, 21, and Maulana Salim Sheikh, 24, were arrested on Saturday and brought to Ahmedabad .
Rashid Pathan, 23, a resident of Zillani Manjil in Limbayat area of Surat, his neighbour Faizan, 21, and Maulana Salim Sheikh, 24, were arrested on Saturday and brought to Ahmedabad .
Uttar Pradesh’s director general of police OP Singh had said on Saturday that Sheikh had radicalised the other four men by showing a video of Kamlesh Tiwari’s hate speech against Muslims in 2015.
WATCH | Kamlesh Tiwari murder: CCTV footage of 3 accused being detained in Surat
Rashid hatched the murder plan while Faizan was the person who purchased sweets from the Surat shop, according to Singh.
“The arrest has revealed that the murder conspiracy was made in Surat, soon after the return of Rashid,” a senior official of Surat Police’s Crime Branch said.
Sheikh Ashfaq Hussain and Rashid’s brother Pathan Moinuddin Ahmed, who murdered the Hindu Samaj Party founder inside his house in Lucknow’s Khursheed Bagh locality on Friday, are yet to be arrested.
The Surat Crime Branch and Gujarat police’s anti-terrorism squad had rounded up seven people on Friday night just hours after Kamlesh Tiwari was murdered at around 1pm on the same day.
“Seven persons were detained in a late-night (Friday) operation in Surat. Following investigation and interrogation, three of them were arrested on Saturday and taken to Ahmedabad,” the senior official said.
Their arrests came after boxes of sweets from a shop in Surat were discovered at the crime scene police in Lucknow. The two killers in saffron kurtas were seen carrying the box on CCTV footage captured outside Tiwari’s house.
The sweet boxes, which was used to carry weapons including a country-made gun and knives, were bought from a shop Dharti Farsan in Surat’s Udhna area, officials said.
“The CCTV footage have confirmed that trio had come to buy sweets and boxes were later used to conceal weapons. We have also found a copy of the bill,” a Surat Police official said.
Lucknow’s senior superintendent of police (SSP), Kalanidhi Naithani had said on Saturday that a team led by the assistant superintendent of police (crime), Dinesh Puri, had left for Surat to take custody of the three conspirators held in Surat.
They will be brought to Lucknow after procuring their transit remand from a local court.
Police in Lucknow said on Sunday they have found blood-stained kurtas worn by Sheikh Ashfaq Hussain and Pathan Moinuddin Ahmed, also from Surat.
The saffron-coloured kurtas, a bag, towels and other items were recovered from Lucknow’s Khalsa Inn Hotel in Lalbagh area during a search by the police, officials said.
While the families of the three arrested men have roots in UP, they have been living in Surat for more than two decades.
Prasanta Patnaik