Sunny confesses of killing Meher

Lucknow, Mar 30 (UNI) Sunny Rawat, arrested by Lucknow police yesterday, today confessed shooting Meher Bhargava, who died in a Delhi hospital a month later.

Rawat made his confession before media at the residence of SSP (Lucknow) Ashutosh Pandey. Rawat told reporters it was he who pulled the trigger on Meher. However, yesterday, he had claimed before media that while he was present at the time of the murder, it was Sachin Pahari alias Amit Singh who shot the woman for challenging the goons after they passed lewd remarks on her daughter-in-law.

Last evening the Bhargavas too maintained that Rawat had shot Meher. Police had taken Rawat to the Bhargava household for a test identification parade.

The police till this morning had maintained that Pahari had shot Meher. Pahari was shot at in an encounter in the Kaiserbagh area here last afternoon at 1430 hrs.

But, he managed to escape. Meanwhile, the city police, already under tremendous public pressure over Meher Bhargava murder, has been unable to trace the prime accused in the case.

All hotels, hospitals and nursing homes are under police surveillance.

''We have tightened security and it is almost impossible for Pahari to escape for long,'' Senior Suprintendent of Police (SSP), Lucknow Asutosh Pandey told UNI.

State capital police, which is under fire from all quarters over its inability to nab the killers of Meher even after one month of the incident, is also finding it difficult to sell its yesterday's encounter theory while evading several queries in this regard.

Meanwhile, the SSP who claimed to have achieved a breakthrough in a police sub-inspector's murder case more than a month ago in Rajajipuram area of the capital, said it was executed by Sunny Rawat.

Rawat was arrested from the state capital yesterday and besides being interrogated in the Meher case was also found to be directly involved in SI's murder.

Meher was shot by miscreants in the busy Hazratganj area -- barely few yards away from the SSP residence -- when she objected to lewd remarks passed on her daughter-in-law on February 28 last.

She was partially paralysed following the bullet wound and breathed last at a hospital in the national capital.

Various social groups and women organisations organised protests against the killing while the Congress party has been extremely aggressive while alleging political patronage to the culprits.

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