Four suspects in railway contractor’s killing captured on CCTV, hunt on to arrest them - Hindustan Times
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Four suspects in railway contractor’s killing captured on CCTV, hunt on to arrest them

By, Lucknow
Jun 28, 2022 10:28 PM IST

The contractor survived at least three attempts on his life in the last four years. He had suffered two bullet wounds in an attack on him in 2019

As many as four suspected shooters, including the name of a Bihar gangster, have come under the scanner in connection with the daylight murder of a 42-year-old railway contractor Virendra Thakur alias Gorkha, who was shot dead by three masked assailants in the presence of his second wife and three children in his house in Nilmatha locality under Cantt police station limits here on Saturday afternoon.

A senior police official said investigations have revealed that Thakur had survived at least three attempts on his life in the last four years. (FOR REPRESENTATION PURPOSE)
A senior police official said investigations have revealed that Thakur had survived at least three attempts on his life in the last four years. (FOR REPRESENTATION PURPOSE)

The shooters had barged into the victim’s house.

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Police officials said that the complainant in the case, the victim’s second wife Khusbun Tara, had told the police that there were three shooters involved in the killing. But the CCTV footage from a jewellery shop, located around 250m from the house in Nilmatha locality, hinted that there were four suspects, including Firdaus, a gangster hailing from Bihar. Firdaus once worked and lived with the victim in Lucknow for two years between 2017 and 2019. The police said it looks like the fourth accused stayed away from the house to keep an eye on police movement. They added that Thakur’s second wife Khusbun Tara had also named Firdaus in the FIR registered in the matter.

A senior police official said investigations have revealed that Thakur had survived at least three attempts on his life in the last four years. He said Virendra Thakur was first attacked behind Charbagh railway station in Alambagh locality in 2019 when he was called there by the shooters after honey-trapping him through a woman. The police said Thakur suffered two bullet wounds in that attack but survived. He couldn’t walk properly since then. Firdaus is said to be involved in the 2019 attack as well, police added.

He said the sequence of events told by his wife and others suggested at least two more attempts were made to eliminate Thakur after that, but every time he managed to dodge the shooters.

“Thakur had deployed three private security guards outside his house after realising the risk to his life and avoided moving out of the house. He never allowed any outsider to enter his house without confirming here identity,” the official emphasized.

He added, “The shooters, who had come to eliminate, also knew this fact and managed to get the door of the house opened with the help of private guards deployed outside the house and shot Thakur dead.”

The official said Khusbun Tara had mentioned in her statement that one of the security guards accompanied the killers, and she opened the door when the guard knocked. Police said the three guards were residents of Shahjahanpur and are at large. A police team was sent to Shahjahanpur to catch the trio, but their houses were locked.

Criminal background

Virendra Thakur himself had a long criminal background and several criminal cases registered against him in Bihar’s West Champaran district and nearby places.

“He was living in Lucknow, secretly hiding his criminal background, but it looks like his past deeds finally caught up to him, and he was shot dead for some of the crimes he did in the past,” said a police official privy to the investigation. He said the first case related to a robbery was lodged against Thakur in June 1997. He was allegedly involved in the killing of a railway contract in 2007. Later, his name surfaced in the killing of a gangster’s aide in Bihar in 2016.

Thakur had been living in Lucknow’s crowded Nilmatha locality since 2013. His first wife had left him and got married to another man in 2021, leaving her three children behind. Thakur also got married the second time, and his second wife was taking care of his children from the first marriage.

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