Lover's plot to kill Anna Hazare goes haywire

Mumbai, Sept 24: The Union Home Ministry control room in New Delhi received a call on Aug 30 stating that anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare would be shot dead in the hospital at Pune where he was repurcating after he called off his fast against Jan Lokpal Bill.

The caller also stated that Shirish Kulkarni, a software engineer by profession in Pune planned the plot to shoot down the septuagenarian.

After investigations, the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) to their shock found that that the caller was none other than Shirish Kulkarni's girlfriend, Rashmi Shinde who wanted to take revenge on him.

Rashimi a graduate from Yevatmal was detained by the ATS and then handed over to the Haveli police station, Pune.

"The girl first called up on the mobile number of a Pune resident who used to write feature articles in Marathi news papers in Pune. She told him that Kulkarni had planned to shoot Hazare in the hospital on August 31 morning. She also gave Kulkarni's name and contact number and hung up the phone. Shinde had used a PCO to make the phone call," said Rakesh Maria, ATS chief.

"Same day, another call with same content was made to the union Home ministry's control room. The information was again passed on to the Maharashtra police and our staff began probing the case. First we called Kulkarni for questioning and found that he had no such plan and completely unaware about such phone call," added Maria.

"Kulkarni told our men that he was in love with a girl (Shinde) but her parents had disapproved their relationship. Meanwhile, Shinde's parents arranged her wedding with someone else in Yevatmal but she refused to marry against her wish. She was not in touch with Kulkarni for almost six months but afterwards she came to Pune," said Maria.

The ATS Chief also added that Kulkrani married someone else during this period and Shinde was unaware of this. Later when she asked about getting married to Kulkarni, he refused saying he was already married. "She could not tolerate rejection in love and planned to retaliate by wrongly implicating Kulkarni in a sensitive case and hence she made threat calls," he said.

However, the victim confessed to her crime and her statement has been recorded.

OneIndia News