Effort to bribe SP in journalist murder case, 4 TPC men held

Chatra (Jharkhand), May 27: Four members of the Trutiya Prastuti Committee (TPC) were today arrested for their alleged effort to bribe a senior police officer to remove the name of a TPC member from the list of the accused in the murder case of journalist Akhilesh Pratap Singh on May 12.

The arrest was made after Superintendent of Police Anjani Kumar Jha got a tip-off that TPC activist Anup Yadav had allegedly taken Rs 10 lakh from Mukesh Ganju assuring him that he would contact a senior police officer to remove his name from the list of the accused in the murder case, the SP told reporters.

Mukesh Ganju, stated to be the mastermind of the murder of the journalist, is absconding. Following the tip-off, the SP conducted a raid and arrested Yadav along with the Rs 10 lakh in cash.

Based on leads provided by Yadav during interrogation, the police arrested the three including Yogendra Yadav, a sub-zonal commander of TPC, from Jori village under Sadar police station limits, the SP said.

Three pistols, 29 cartridges and eight mobile phones were recovered from their possession. The three other arrested persons--Anup Yadav, Amarjeet Yadav and Prabhu Mistry-- were allegedly indulged in hawala on behalf of ultra outfits like CPI(Maoist), the TPC and the PLFI, Jha said.

Journalist Akhilesh Pratap Singh alias Inderdev Yadav was shot dead at Dewaria in Chatra district on May 12. The police last week claimed that the news channel journalist was killed by TPC for not meeting their demands for levy.

PTI