BHOPAL: Five men, two of them involved in communal violence in the past too, have been arrested by police in connection with the April 10-11 brutal killing of Ibarish Khan in communal riot hit Khargone town of Madhya Pradesh.
The late night killing remains so far the lone killing of the April 10 Khargone communal violence, which caused injuries to over three dozen, people 10-12 cops. According to Khargone in-charge SP Rohit Kashwani, the five men arrested for allegedly killing Ibarish Khan alias Saddam are residents of Anand Nagar-Rahimpura communally sensitive locality.
"The arrested men, who have confessed to the crime, have also been identified by the eye witnesses to the crime. The arrested men have told the police about committing the crime out of religious frenzy," Kashwani said on Thursday late night.
The arrested men have been identified as Dilip, Sandeep, Ajay Karma, Ajay Solanki and Dipak Pradhan. Three other accused are on the run, police sources in Khargone confided to The New Indian Express. According to key sources in Khargone police, two of the arrested men, have been involved in cases of communal violence in Khargone in the past.
The investigation based on grilling of the arrested men has revealed that there was a clash between two communities in the communally sensitive Anand Nagar area on April 10 night.
A group of men attacked the house of one Vicky Gaglani in Anand Nagar area late on April 10 night -- a few hours after the communal violence was triggered by attack on Ram Navami procession in Talab Chowk area.
Vicky and his aides subsequently retaliated chasing the group of the other community men, who had attacked his house with petrol bombs and stones. They caught hold of the local municipality staff, 28-year-old Ibarish Khan alias Saddam, who hailed from the neighbouring Islampura locality.
Catching Ibarish alone, the eight men took him to the adjacent Kapas Mandi locality and brutally murdered him. Importantly, Ibarish (who as per kin had gone to Anand Nagar mosque on April 10 evening) was found dead in Kapas Mandi area at around 1:30 am on April 11.
His family had lodged a missing person report with the local police on April 14 morning, around 12 hours before lodging the murder case of an unidentified man, as his identity wasn't established by then. Four days later, his brother Iqhlak was called by police to identify the body preserved in the deep freezer of Indore's MY Hospital. Finally the murder of Ibarish Khan was reported on April 18 early morning.