4 men, 2 minors held for Delhi BJP leader’s murder

Those held by police include a man involved in the actual shooting and five others, including two minors, said DCP (Dwarka) M Harsha Vardhan

A week after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was shot dead in west Delhi’s Bindapur, police officers on Saturday said they have arrested four men and detained two minors who were involved in the murder. Officers said the suspects were allegedly working at the behest of fugitive gangster Kapil Sangwan.

Surender Matiala, 60, was shot by two men at his office in Bindapur on April 14. (HT Photo)

Surender Matiala, 60, had unsuccessfully contested the 2017 municipal elections and was the district president of the BJP’s Kisan Morcha in Najafgarh. According to police, he was shot by two men at his office in Bindapur on April 14.

Those held by police include a man involved in the actual shooting and five others, including two minors, who were either part of the conspiracy or provided logistical support for the attack, said M Harsha Vardhan, deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka).

The DCP said while the main handlers of the crime are on the run, and the exact motive behind shooting Matiala remains unknown, the probe so far suggests that Sangwan planned it to assert his presence in the area.

“This was a desperate act by Sangwan to assert his presence and revive his dwindling group as most of his associates are currently in jail after getting booked under provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA),” he said.

After Matiala was murdered, police parsed through footage of CCTV cameras installed in the area and learnt that while two men were involved in the shooting, two others were waiting nearby on motorcycles.

The next day, a social media account was created using the name and photograph of Sangwan and claimed that Matiala was killed because he was “a relative of Manjeet Mahal and was his partner in property business”. Mahal is a jailed gangster, and Sangwan’s rival, police said.

HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the message or the account that was used to post it.

The DCP said the post was investigated, but the account used to share it was found to be created on the same day and hardly had any followers. “It could not be substantiated if it was a genuine post,” he said.

Instead, the police used the CCTV footage and local inquiries to identify the suspects, and were able to link them to Sangwan, who is originally from outer Delhi’s Najafgarh, but who fled India and is operating his gang from abroad.

“We conducted multiple raids in Delhi, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh,” said Vardhan, adding that the police made the arrests from Wednesday to Friday. He said the exact motive for the murder is yet to be ascertained.