Scribe murder: Names of Bihar minister Abdul Gafoor & Shahabuddin crop up

In a fresh twist, the name of Minority Welfare Minister and JD(U) MLA Abdul Gafoor has come up in the murder of Rajdev Ranjan, the bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan. Ranjan had broken the news of meeting of Gafoor with jailed don Mohammad Shahabuddin in Siwan district jail in early March this year. The name of former RJD lawmaker Shahabuddin has also cropped up during the police investigation.

Ever since Ranjan had published the news, he started getting threat calls which was brought to the notice of administration too but they didn’t take it seriously, a staffer of the publication said.

According to a senior police officer in Siwan, Ranjan was a very daring journalist and was the only scribe in the district who knew about Shahabuddin much better than police officers. “The weapon used in the murder was fitted with a silencer, which is rarely in practice in Bihar. It indicates involvement of professional killers in the case,” a source added.

Sources further said that detention of Upendra Singh, one of Shahabuddin’s a close aide, indicates involvement of the lawmaker in the case. Earlier, Upendra was also arrested in BJP leader Srikant Bharti’s murder case in 2014. Bharti was also killed in Siwan in November 2014.

Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has strongly condemned the murder of two journalists in Bihar and Jharkhand and demanded an independent investigation. “I strongly condemn murder of journalists Rajdev Ranjan in Siwan & Akhilesh Pratap Singh in Chatra district,” tweeted Jaitley, who is also the Minister for Information and Broadcasting.

The Press Club of India has also expressed “serious concern” at the brutal murders and said they were “attempts on part of the mafia to muzzle the independent voice of the media”.

Siwan SP Saurabh Kumar said: “It seems six people have carried out the murder. Three people have been detained. We have zeroed in on the gang that could be behind the killing and the gang has links with Shahabuddin. We expect to crack the case soon.”

Meanwhile, the family of Ranjan has demanded a CBI probe into the case.