VIDISHA: Five persons including the alleged shooter have been arrested in connection with the murder of RTI activist Ranjeet Soni here, police officials said on Friday.
Soni, a former government contractor, was shot dead on Thursday evening.
Police have arrested the `main shooter' Ankit Yadav alias Tunda, Jaswant Singh, Naresh Sharma, Aish Kumar Choube and Shailendra Patel, said district Superintendent of Police Monica Shukla on Friday.
As per the preliminary probe, Soni had allegedly given a cheque of Rs 4.60 lakh to Jaswant Singh, who is a contractor, in 2015-16, but that cheque bounced.
They subsequently had disputes over some other payments too, but Soni later allegedly used the Right to Information Act to harass Singh and others, said additional SP Samir Yadav.
Soni allegedly filed RTI applications to get information about works undertaken by Singh and others in order to trouble them, he said.
On Friday, there was a hearing of the cheque bouncing case in a local court, the official added.
Singh and others decided to get rid of Soni and allegedly hired Yadav, who is facing several criminal cases including an attempt to murder case, to do the job for an unspecified amount between Rs 1 to 2 lakh.
They allegedly paid him Rs 25,000 in advance and also arranged a country-made pistol for him.
Yadav allegedly shot Soni dead on Thursday evening in front of the PWD office here where he had gone for some work.
Working on the leads found during the probe, Yadav and four others were arrested under IPC section 302 (murder) and further probe was on, SP Shukla said.
She also announced a reward of Rs 10,000 to the police team which cracked the case within 24 hours.