New Delhi: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad on Tuesday arrested two prime suspects accused of murdering the Hindu Samaj Party founder Kamlesh Tewari near Shamlaji on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border, according to a report in the Indian Express.
Kamlesh Tiwari, the leader of a Hindu group, who had been convicted for making allegedly derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad, was murdered outside his house in Lucknow on Friday. The accused, one of whom was dressed in a saffron kurta, met Kamlesh on the pretext of presenting him with Diwali sweets and then allegedly slit his throat and shot him.
Shaikh, who worked as a medical representative, posed as a colleague from his company, Rohit Solanki, and used his identity and details of his Aadhaar card to join Tiwari’s Hindu Samaj Party. Moinuddin Pathan worked for a food supply company.
According to a report in the Hindustan Times, Solanki told reporters that he used to work as a medical representative for a pharma company and that Ashfaq Shaikh was his immediate senior. “Since he was the area manager, I submitted a copy my Aadhaar card to him to complete the joining formalities as per the company policy. Now I have learnt that he forged the Aadhaar card to assume my identity,” Solanki said.
The Gujarat ATS DIG Himanshu Shukla said that, “Both accused will be handed over to UP Police in the coming days as the case had been registered with Lucknow Police. They confessed to us about their involvement in the murder of Kamlesh Tiwari last Friday.”
Also read: Kamlesh Tiwari Murder: A Tale of Two Theories
Gujarat ATS officials also said that the two accused – Ashfaq Hussain Jakir Hussain Shaikh (34) and Farid alias Moinuddin Khurshid Pathan (27) – were residents of the city of Surat and had first fled to Nepal and then Shahjahapur in Uttar Pradesh, after which they contacted family members seeking financial support.
“Once their money dried up, the accused called their family members and acquaintances in Surat for assistance. But those close to the two had already been placed under surveillance, and based on that, they were apprehended from the Gujarat-Rajasthan border near Shamlaji,” a statement released by the state police said.
The two suspected persons arrested in connection with Kamlesh Tiwari’s murder on Tuesday, October 22, 2019. Photo: PTI
At Surat, based on technical surveillance, ATS officials arrested the two accused.
So far, the Gujarat ATS has arrested five people in the case as Pathan’s brother Rashid and two others – Maulana Mohsin Shaikh and Faizan Member – were nabbed from Surat on Saturday.
Tiwari was a controversial figure, and was arrested in 2015 for allegedly making offensive remarks about Prophet Muhammad. The National Security Act was invoked against him. In January 2016, the Uttar Pradesh government passed an order putting Tiwari in detention for a year.
Also read: Five Arrested In UP Hindu Group Leader Kamlesh Tiwari’s Killing
For his derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad, Tiwari had been arrested and later placed under year-long detention.
While Tiwari’s wife has blamed Muslim clerics for his murder, his mother and nephew have claimed that local BJP leader Shiv Kumar Gupta had conspired to murder Tiwari over a ‘temple dispute’. Tiwari’s family met Yogi Adityanath at his office in Lucknow after they threatened to not cremate his body until they were granted a chance to meet the UP chief minister.
In a Facebook video prior to his murder, Tiwari had claimed that BJP leaders were plotting his murder and that the Yogi Adityanath government had removed his security cover with malicious intentions.
However the ATS, in a press release said that the primary investigation into the case revealed that they had committed the crime “in retribution to purported statements by the deceased”.