Nafe Singh Rathi murder case: Old challan helped cops identify car used in crime

Ravinder Saini

Jhajjar, February 28

Though no arrest has been made in the murder of INLD state chief Nafe Singh Rathi and his aide Jai Kishan so far, police sources claim that a Hyundai i20 used in the crime has been recognised and efforts are on to reach its present owner. A CCTV camera caught the car, in which two youths were sitting in the front and one of them was talking over the phone, before the crime.

“The probe has found that the car was issued a challan two years ago. Scratches on the car visible in the CCTV footage and the picture of the car printed on the challan notice were found to be the same when the police analysed them. The helped the police reach its original owner in Faridabad, who told them that he had sold the car,” claimed the sources.

The police found out that the car had been purchased on finance and sold multiple times in the past over five years. Though the present owner was at large, the police had got crucial leads about the identification of the assailants, and their possible hideouts were being raided by the Haryana and Delhi police, the sources said.

“The Jhajjar police are in constant touch with their counterparts in Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and are working on the theory of contract killing. Separate teams of the Haryana Police have questioned gangsters and their members lodged at jails in Jhajjar, Panipat, Mandoli and Tihar (Delhi) to find out the link of assailants with them,” said the sources.

Though the report of ballistic experts were yet to arrive, three kinds of foreign-made firearms were, as per police investigation, used in the crime, which indicated that the assailants were professionals and had perpetrated the crime after carrying out a recce. Over 20 bullet shells were recovered from the crime spot. Pictures of the assailants in the car had been captured by CCTV cameras installed at a toll plaza as well.

Gangster Nandu takes responsibility

In a major development, notorious gangster Kapil Sangwan, alias Nandu, has claimed the responsibility of the attack on Rathi. On Wednesday evening, a post in the name of gangster Nandu went viral on social media, claiming that he got Rathi killed as he was a friend of Manjeet Mahal. Manjeet Mahal is a notorious gangster of Delhi and his gang is active in the NCR. He is also Nandu’s rival. A most-wanted criminal of the Delhi Police, Nandu managed to flee abroad on a fake passport some years ago. He is reportedly operating his gang from the UK. Jhajjar SP Arpit Jain said since the social media accounts had been opened over two hours ago, it was being verified whether these had been opened by Nandu or someone else in his name.