Gujarat police on Tuesday arrested two more accused in the murder of Hindu Samaj Party leader Kamlesh Tiwari, taking the total number of arrests in the case to eight. According to the police, Ashfaq Hussain (34) and Moinuddin Pathan (27)—both residents of Surat—were arrested from the Gujarat-Rajasthan border, near Shamalaji.
Police said both Hussain and Pathan have confessed to the crime and claimed that they killed Tiwari to avenge certain statements allegedly made by him. Officials said the duo, who were absconding after Tiwari was killed, were on their way to their families as they had run out of money.
Tiwari (45), who was earlier associated with a faction of the Hindu Mahasabha, was killed at his Lucknow residence on October 18.
Earlier, a 29-year-old man was arrested from Nagpur in Maharashtra on October 19 in connection with the case. Police said Sayyad Asim Ali, who was apprehended by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) from Mominpura area in Nagpur, might have played a "very important" role in the crime.
Apart from Ali, five persons, including three from Gujarat, were also taken into custody in connection with the murder case. The three men—Faizan Yunus Bhai, Maulana Mohsin Sheikh and Rashid Ahmed Khursheed Ahmed Pathan—were arrested by the Gujarat ATS on the basis of the CCTV footage obtained from a shop, from where they had bought sweets that were found at the scene of the crime.
The other two accused—Bijnor residents Mohammed Mufti Naeem Kazmi and Imam Maulana Anwarul Haq—were booked on murder charge after Tiwari's wife named them in her police complaint alleging that the duo had announced a bounty of Rs 1.5 crore on his head in 2016.
However, Tiwari's mother Kusuma alleged that he was killed by a "local BJP leader" due to a temple dispute in a village.
The Uttar Pradesh police had on Monday announced a reward of Rs 2.5 lakh each for arrests of two more suspects.
With inputs from PTI
