Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad arrests 2 killers of Kamlesh Tiwari

Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, October 23

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad late on Tuesday arrested the two murder accused of President of Hindu Samaj party president 43-year old Kamlesh Tiwari at Shamlaji near the Rajasthan-Gujarat border.

An Ahmedabad court granted Uttar Pradesh Police, which had come down to Gujarat to take back the suspects for questioning, transit remand for 72 hours. 

According to the Gujarat ATS DIG Himanshu Shukla, the two accused 34-year-old Sheikh Ashfaq Husain, who is a medical representative and 27-year-old Moinuddin Khurshid Pathan, who is a food delivery boy, were finally nabbed four days after they committed the crime in Lucknow’s congested Khurshid Bagh area on October 18. 

During the primary interrogation, the two accused have confessed their crime and said that it was in retribution to the purported statement made by the deceased Kamlesh Tiwari against the Prophet.

They had been absconding since murdering Tiwari at his office-cum-residence.

Their escaping after the murder had been captured in the CCTV cameras near the crime scene in Khurshid Bagh in Lucknow on October 18, at the Naka Hindola hotel lobby camera where they had been staying and at Shahjahnapur.

DIG Shukla said that that after escaping to Nepal when the committing the crime they had returned to Shahjahnpur on Monday and after crossing several districts and states were attempting to return to Surat in Gujarat when they were arrested at the border.

According to the police, the two had run out of money and were trying to contact their family and acquaintances for money when they were arrested with the help of technical and physical surveillance as the Gujarat ATS had kept vigil of their family and acquaintances.

The two would soon be handed over to the UP police for further action.

Meanwhile, the three persons arrested earlier in Surat on charges of conspiring to the killing – Maulana Mohsin Shaikh, Faizaan and Rashid Pathan, were brought to Lucknow on transit remand.

They have been presented in the CJM court which sent them to four days of police custody.

Expressing happiness at the arrest of the two main accused Kamlesh Tiwari’s mother Kusum Tiwari demanded the two to be hanged.

The UP STF has also arrested two persons from Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit on Tuesday over suspicion of having provided logistic support to the two main accused.