Who was Nafe Singh Rathee, the Haryana INLD chief shot dead in Jhajjar?

Serving as an MLA from Bahadurgarh on the INLD ticket from 1996 to 2005, he later became the President of party’s Haryana unit. Additionally, Rathee served two terms as the Chairman of Bahadurgarh Municipal Council.

Rathee switched to the BJP in 2014 after INLD denied him ticket from Bahadurgarh. When the BJP too refused him a ticket, he contested independently. In 2018, he returned to INLD.

Senior INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala appointed Rathee the president of the party’s Haryana unit in January 2020, a year after its worst ever performance at the hustings in the state assembly elections. He succeeded Birbal Das Dhalia, who was elevated as the Indian National Lok Dal’s (INLD) national president.

However, Rathee faced legal issues in January 2023, when he was declared the main accused in the suicide case of Jagdish Rathi, son of former BJP minister Mange Ram Rathi, and booked under Section 306 (abetment to suicide). A lookout circular was issued by the Jhajjar district police to prevent him from leaving the country.

Jagdish Rathi (55), son of former Minister Mange Ram Rathi, had committed suicide by consuming poison. Jagdish’s family had accused Nafe Singh of trying to harass him in a property-related matter.

The police said that a month before the suicide, Jagdish had circulated an audio clip in which he alleged that these people (the six accused, including Nafe Singh) had been harassing him and if anything happened to him they would be responsible.

A few days after the case against Nafe Singh Rathee, his son Jitender Rathee was arrested in connection with installation of an electricity meter.

The Rathee family had then slammed the arrest as “an attempt to pressurise them and crush the Opposition ”.

Chautala had dismissed these allegations as a “political conspiracy,”

Interestingly, Rathee, also the President of the Indian Style Wrestling Association of India, represented India in Ethnosports in Turkey last week.