Five held in connection with murder of UP political outfit chief

Lucknow: Five people, including three in Surat, have been detained in connection with the murder of Kamlesh Tiwari, the president of a little-known Hindu Samaj Party, police said here on Saturday.
Two of them, identified as Bijnor residents Mohammed Mufti Naeem Kazmi and Imam Maulana Anwarul Haq, were booked on the murder charge on Friday after Tiwari’s wife named them in her complaint to police here. Tiwari’s wife Kiran had alleged that both had announced a cash reward of Rs 1.5 crore on her husband’s head in 2016.
“They have killed my husband by hatching a conspiracy,” she had alleged. The other three persons detained in Gujarat’s Surat are Faizan Yunus Bhai, Maulana Mohsin Sheikh and Rashid Ahmed Khursheed Ahmed Pathan. DGP O P Singh said the Uttar Pradesh Police and their Gujarat counterparts were interrogating them.
“So far, there is no terror angle associated with this incident,” DGP O P Singh said in a press conference here. Elaborating on the arrest of the three persons in Surat, the DGP said, “On the basis of a packet of sweets obtained from the crime spot, the Gujarat Police was contacted and a team was sent there. A CCTV footage of a Surat-based sweets shop was examined and Faizan Yunus Bhai was identified.” He said later Maulana Mohsin Sheikh and Rashid Ahmed Khursheed Ahmed Pathan were detained.
“Going by investigation and joint interrogation, it was clear that these three persons were part of the conspiracy to murder Kamlesh Tiwari,” Singh said, adding that their interrogation revealed that they had no links with any terror organisation.
The DGP said two more persons– Rashid’s brother and Gaurav Tiwari–were also questioned but were let off after investigation. (PTI)