Rajesh Meher, alias Babloo, one of the four arrested last night by the CBI in connection with the Satyendra Dubey murder, was the kingpin of underworld operations in Katari village in the outskirts of Gaya.On February 7, three months after Dubey’s murder, The Sunday Express had named Babloo as one of the prime suspects in the mystery deaths of two Katari youths, Mukendra Paswan and Shivnath Sahu. In fact, this newspaper had reported how he told villagers hours before their deaths: ‘‘Aaj do wicket girne wala hai (an indication that he knew more than he claimed).Both Paswan and Sahu died of poisoning after they had been questioned by the CBI. Police sources said that besides the fear of Paswan and Sahu spilling the beans, Babloo—who passes himself off as a local Bajrang Dal leader—had plans for ‘‘grabbing land’’ belonging to one of the victims.Babloo owned a telephone booth in Katari village, a privilege that kept him informed on police and CBI movements because both agencies used this booth to summon suspects to the police station or the CBI camp in Gaya. It also turned out that Babloo knew Pradeep, the rickshaw-puller who was believed to be an eyewitness to the murder. The CBI had brought Pradeep to Delhi for questioning but then he went missing with the agency hard-pressed to explain his disappearance.When contacted today, Dubey’s brother Dhananjay told The Indian Express: ‘‘We have to accept whatever the CBI the says now. But I for one, will never believe that my brother was killed for robbery.’’To him, there were too many coincidences to allow for such a simplistic explanation. But even if the CBI did conclude that the motive was for killing Dubey was just robbery, Dhananjay said this should not be used as an excuse to ignore the corruption charges made by his brother. "For us, justice is about bringing the corrupt to book," he said. "Irrespective of who killed bhaiya, there should be a separate investigation into the issues raised by my brother. Nobody seems to be interested in that."
