Tycoon Deepak Bhardwaj murder: Wife quizzed,3 detained,but no arrests yet

A raid was carried out at a house of a man identified as Narinder of Bakshi Mohalla in Jind,which led the police to the three suspects,DSP (Jind) Om Singh Balhara told reporters. A Santro car was also recovered.

However,there was no confirmation whether the detained persons were the shooters allegedly involved in Tuesday’s incident in which BSP leader and real estate tycoon Bhardwaj (62),who was the richest candidate in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls,was killed in his farmhouse in Rajokri.

“No arrests have been made. We are investigating the matter,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (South Delhi) Chhaya Sharma told reporters.

Police also questioned Bhardwaj’s wife Ramesh Kumari and sons who are living separately.

A senior police official said the murderers could be residents of a north-west Delhi locality. Several teams are conducting searches in Haryana,western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

“We are investigating all angles. It has something to do with property or money,” the official said.

Police is also investigating whether a female friend of Bhardwaj was allegedly involved in the incident.

Asked whether four people were waiting outside the farmhouse for the killers and they got into the same car,the official said they were investigating it. Bhardwaj had three gun shot injuries in his body.

Asked whether police suspected the hand of an insider,the official said the possibility could not be ruled out as the trio “managed” to go inside almost 500 metres without losing way,shoot the victim and then flee from the spot easily.

Around 40 employees were inside the around 25 acre farmhouse at the time of the incident. However,the two Personal Security Officers were not with Bhardwaj or inside the farmhouse at the time of the incident.

On the family front,the official said,there were problems and Bhardwaj was apparently not giving any money or was willing to give property to his wife or sons.

Sources said Bhardwaj had allegedly asked his wife and sons to return the ownership of the school they were running to him.

“Ten teams are on the job. We will solve the case soon,” the official said. There were 25 CCTVs in the farmhouse which the official said was inadequate to cover such a big area.

He said the car used by the shooters to enter the farmhouse was a four-year-old vehicle and police teams are looking into records in various offices of transport department.

“We think the guard has noted down the number of the car wrongly. May be it is also a fake number,” the official said.