Four held for attempting to kill MLA Bharat Singh

“On Saturday morning,Bharat Singh and his relative Dharampal were shot at inside Singh’s office in Najafgarh by Dagar,Kuldeep Mittal (26),Sumeet Singh (28) and Virender Sehrawat (23). They arrived on motorcycles at 8.30 am and shot at Singh who had just got out of his Scorpio car and walked into office premises,” said B K Gupta,Delhi Police Commissioner.

MLA Singh is the younger brother of local strongman,Kishen Pehalwan who has 27 murder cases registered against him.

According to police,after Singh received one bullet injury he locked himself inside the bathroom,but his attackers broke the door down and shot at him again as they had “come with the intention of killing him”.

Dharampal tried to grapple with one of the attackers,and he too was shot at,police said. The condition of the two is said to be stable now.

Immediately after the incident,a team under the supervision of Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Cell and Crime) Ashok Chand,DCP (Special Cell) Sanjeev Yadav,ACP (Special Cell) Subhash Tandon and Inspector Brahmjeet Singh was formed. It included 12 others.

In an operation that lasted 11 hours,police first gathered information that the accused will assemble in Kishangarh to collect money from a local contact and then escape to Rajasthan.

“They were rounded up. They tried firing at the police team,but were overpowered,” said Commissioner Gupta.

On questioning,police were told that Dagar’s aunt Ramo Devi and her husband had been called by MLA Singh in June last year after a local resident approached him alleging that the couple had not returned his Rs 50 lakh. The money,the local resident claimed,was invested in a committee fund on the recommendation of the couple.

Police were told that Singh humiliated 75-year-old Ramo Devi and her husband and also roughed them up in Dichaon village.

Ramo Devi told Dagar about the incident,who,five days after the incident,slapped Singh at a puja at Baba Haridas Mandir in Jharoda village.

Sources said Dagar then went into hiding and planned the murder of Singh.

Except for Mittal,who has a case of auto theft against him,the other three have no previous criminal record.

Dagar is a graduate in Hindi (Hons) from Ram Lal Anand College of DU,has an MBA from Sikkim Manipal University and had recently got a scholarship to study in Dublin. Mittal is a moneylender,Sumeet is an agriculturist and Sehrawat works with DTC.

“The four disclosed that they met in Jharoda Kalan in May and made the plan. Then,they procured fire arms and ammunition,” said Additional CP Chand.

“Initially,they wanted to target the MLA when he visited Jharoda Kalan. Later,they decided to target him at his office in Najafgarh. Sehrawat conducted a recce of Singh’s office for a week,and found that he came to office between 8 am and 10 am,” said DCP Yadav.

Two .30 bore pistols,one .38 bore revolver,30 cartridges,two magazines,two empty shells and one mobile phone were recovered from the accused,police said.