KHARAGPUR: In what may seem like an open and shut case of a crime, West Bengal police arrested seven persons on Thursday night in connection with the murder of Kharagpur's Telugu mafioso Srinu Naidu at a Trinamool Congress party office on Wednesday.
Speaking at a presser here on Friday, Paschim Medinipur district superintendent of police Bharati Ghosh said that investigation into the case revealed that Shankar Rao, an old rival of railway mafioso Srinu Naidu, had carefully planned the operation at Shalimar in Howrah district and at the railway quarters of fellow accused Francis Xavier in Kharagpur.
"Two assassins were also hired from Jamshedpur in neighbouring Jharkhand. Seven of the accused including old rivals Shankar Rao, Nanda Das, Barun Ghosh and others have been arrested from Ghatal in Paschim Medinipur and pistols and ammunition have been seized," she said.
The police are looking for three more accused, including the two Jamshedpur assassins and one Kharagpur resident. Bharati Ghosh also indicated that help of Jharkhand police may be sought in nabbing the two assassins.
"The entire planning of the attack began from January in Shalimar in Howrah district and railway quarter of Francis Xavier in Kharagpur. Shankar Rao had overseen the operation from Shalimar," she added.
Police claimed that one of the assailants was injured in the attack. The dispensary where he bandaged his wounds was tracked and the injured accused tracked from there.
"Names and modus operandi was revealed after that accused was nabbed," a police official said. SP Bharati Ghosh said that though Srinu was a mafioso, he had no record of crime for the past three years, the time since her wife Pooja became a Trinamool councillor.