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Ex-MLA Sarvesh Singh murder: STF arrests key accused from Punjab decade later
Pintu was arrested in connection with the murder and granted bail in 2014 after about a year in prison. He had been missing since.
In a breakthrough, Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested a ‘most-wanted’ gangster, Arvind Kashyap alias Pintu, from Punjab’s Ludhiana, senior police officials said on Friday.
Pintu, who had been absconding for the last nine years, is a key accused in the sensational murder of former MLA and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Sarvesh Singh and his associate Bharat Rai at Singh’s residence in Azamgarh in 2013. Singh was a Samajwadi Party MLA from Sagri between 2007 and 2012 before shifting loyalties to the BSP.
The arrest was made by U.P. Special Task Force (STF), which had declared a reward of ₹1 lakh for information leading to Pintu’s arrest. The case against the murder was registered at the Jiyanpur police station of Azamgarh. It was later taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the recommendation of the state government, according to a note released to the media.
Pintu was arrested in connection with the murder and granted bail in 2014 after about a year in prison. He had been missing since.
Police officials said Kashyap, who hailed from Chakia Kasrawal village under Mehnagar police station limits of Azamgarh and was an active member of one Dhruv Singh alias Kuntu Singh’s gang, had been living in Ludhiana with a different identity for the past many years. They added he would now be brought to U.P. on transit remand and produced before an Azamgarh court in connection with the case pending against him.
Another prime accused and dreaded gangster Kuntu Singh, presently lodged in the Kasganj jail, has already been awarded life imprisonment in connection with the shootout at Singh’s residence on July 19, 2013.
The police officials said Kuntu Singh, who hatched the murder conspiracy from a jail in Varanasi with the help of four others, and six assailants executed the killing. Sarvesh Singh was shot point-blank.
Eleven people were named in the charge-sheet, and the court convicted nine of them in May 2022. Pintu and Abhishek Singh, also an accused, were separated as they were absconding at the time. Out of nine, seven accused, including Kuntu Singh, were given life imprisonment while the quantum of punishment to two others, Rizwan and Vijay Yadav, was not pronounced as they were not present in the court at the time.
