Charge sheet filed against 13 in Kamlesh Tiwari murder case

Lucknow police have filed a charge sheet against 13 people in connection with the October murder of the leader of a little known Hindu group. Eight people were charge sheeted for murder and conspiracy and five for harbouring the two killers and concealment of evidence, the police said on Wednesday.

Kamlesh Tiwari, leader of the Hindu Samaj Party, was killed at his residence in Lucknow’s Khursheed Bagh neighbourhood on October 18, allegedly by Ashfaq Hussain,34 and Pathan Rashid Ahmed, 27.

Lucknow police have arrested as many as 13 people from different parts of Uttar Pradesh and five from Surat, and one each from Nagpur and Bengaluru.

Vikas Chandra Tripathi, additional superintendent of police (ASP), West Lucknow, confirmed that the charge sheet had been filed in court on December 21. He said the charge sheet was filed against 13 people, of whom 12 people are already in jail and one is out on bail.

The police have booked Moinuddin Khurshid, Pathan Rashid Ahmed, his brother Faizan Member, Ashfaq Hussain and Mohsin Saleem Sheikh, all residents of Surat, along with Sayyed Asim Ali of Nagpur, Yusuf Khan of Fatehpur and Zafar Sadiq of Bengaluru under Sections 302(murder) and 120 B(criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Tripathi said.

He said five others -- Kaifi Ali, Delhi-based lawyer Mohammed Naved and Kamran Ashraf of Bareilly district along with Raes Ahmed and Mohammed Asif Raza of Palia, Shahjahanpur -- had been booked under Sections 212 (harbouring an offender), 216 (harbouring offender who has escaped from custody) and 201 (concealment of evidences) of the IPC. Kaifi Ali, who was lodged in Lucknow jail, was released on bail on December 4.

On October 18, the two alleged killers met Tiwari at his office-cum-residence, where they stabbed him multiple times and fired a gun shot at him. Tiwari died on the spot and the suspects fled from the spot. Before their arrest, the duo travelled to Bareilly where they took refuge and got their injuries treated and entered Nepal via Lakhimpur Kheri but were later nabbed by Gujarat ATS allegedly on their way back to Surat.

According to investigators, the accused were influenced by a Maharashtra-based youth, Sayyed Asim, who is an activist and also used to post inflammatory videos on social media. Ashfaq was allegedly radicalised by those videos and speeches, said the police.