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Lucknow Hanuman temple priests booked for contractor’s murder
Police said the murder was over a dispute about construction of a building on the temple trust premises
Six people including four priests of a Hanuman temple in Gosaiganj in Lucknow were booked for murder of a contractor on Friday night, senior police officials said on Saturday.
Police said the murder was over a dispute about construction of a building on the temple trust premises. Lucknow’s deputy commissioner of police (DCP), north, GK Chowdhary said the body of the private contractor Nirmal Agnihorti was found lying in bushes by the roadside, little distance from Mahavir ji temple in Gosaiganj town area on Friday. He said the postmortem report revealed multiple injuries on the contractor’s body that apparently caused his death.
He said Agnihotri’s family members have accused four priests of Mahavir Ji temple and two others of murdering him in dispute over construction of commercial complex at a portion of the property owned by the temple trust. The priests were opposing the construction.
The DCP said the contractor was carrying out the construction on behalf of one Lala Ganesh Prasad.
Another police official explained that there were two groups among the temple trust members, one of which allowed Lala Ganesh Prasad to construct the complex and to rent it to a bank to raise the temple trust’s income. The other group was opposing this.
The DCP said the contractor’s son Prateek got a named FIR against four priests: Chanderpal alias Bablu, Om Prakash alias Sattu, Bheesma alis Pintu and Pappu. Named FIR was also made against two of their aides Ravindra Kumar and Dharam Raj. Prateek, in his complaint, has accused them of attacking his father and beating him to death.
The police official said all the accused were on the run and three teams had been constituted to arrest them. Three family members of the accused have been taken into custody for further interrogation, police said.
