Key witness in Bhaiyya’s POTA case is shot dead

Kunda police circle officer Ram Shiromani Pandey told The Indian Express over telephone that ‘‘Yadav was a key witness in the POTA case against Raja Bhaiyya. The police are definitely probing the involvement of Raja Bhaiyya’s men because he appears to be the immediate beneficiary of this.’’

Pandey said no arrest had been made though an FIR, naming four persons, had been lodged in this connection. The POTA case against Raja Bhaiyya and his father Udai Pratap Singh was built on Yadav’s statements who, the police said, was a key witness during the search of the legislator’s Bethi palace.

But local sources, while ruling out the police theory, claimed many were witness to the murder committed in a crowded place. ‘‘He was a witness in one of the cases against Raja Bhaiyya but not the one involving POTA. He had already made his statement before a magistrate and no one could have gained by killing him after his statement had been recorded,’’ sources pointed out.

Yadav was the elected head of Banimau village and had an old rivalry with the family of Jagannath Yadav who was killed in 1998. He even went to jail in that case. He also had problems with fair price shop owners in his village because his complaints had led to the closure of some shops.