'Manoj was killed infront of Independent Councillor Raju'

Kolkata: Manoj Upadhyay, chairman of Bhadreswar Municipality, was shot dead in front of Independent Councillor Raju Sahu, investigation revealed.

Manoj was shot dead from point blank range when he was returning home at late night on November 21.

The police arrested Raju Chowdhury, Ratan Chowdhury, Krishna Chowdhury, Akash Chowdhury, Rajesh Chowdhury, Santosh Prasad and Debu Pakre from Benaras on Monday night.

They were brought to Bhadreswar on Wednesday and during interrogation they revealed that Manoj was murdered in presence of Raju. Sources said the accused told the police that there had been a tussle between Raju and Manoj for the past few weeks over eviction of a cow shed in the area. Manoj wanted to evict the cow shed as it had been creating trouble for the residents of the area. However, Raju went against it and had even threatened Manoj.

Police said the miscreants knew that Manoj had an invitation, where other Councillors were present. But he decided not to attend it and went to a local club. After spending a few minutes in the club, Upadhyay was pillion riding on the motorbike of one of his close friends, Chintu, on way to his residence when he was shot dead. The seven persons, who were arrested on Monday night, stayed at Bholanath Guest House in Benaras. During the raid, five of them were in the guest house while the other two had gone out to withdraw money.

The police have intensified search for Raju and assured that he would soon be arrested. It may be recalled that the Trinamool Congress held rally protesting against the murder of the chairman. Thousands of people gathered on GT Road and demanded speedy arrest of the accused. Tapan Dasgupta, the state Agriculture Marketing minister and district president of the TMC had said the police have been asked to take necessary steps to arrest the accused at the earliest. He had also claimed that the BJP was behind the murder of Upadhyay, who was two time Councillor from Ward number 16 and became chairman of the municipality in 2015.