Uttarakhand police on Tuesday gunned down Amarjit Singh alias Bitta, one of the killers of Nanakmatta Dera chief Baba Tarsem Singh, during an encounter in the Roorkee area of Haridwar district.
Two motorcycle-borne assailants had shot dead Baba Tarsem in front of the shrine on March 28. They were identified with the help of CCTV camera footage as Sarabjeet Singh of Tarn Taran district, Punjab, and Amarjit Singh of Bilaspur in Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh.
Abhinav Kumar, the director-general of police (DGP) of Uttarakhand, said: “It wasn’t a simple crime and so we took it as a challenge. One of the assailants suffered bullet injuries during the police encounter and he died. We believe there were 11 people involved in the crime. We have arrested seven persons so far but the inquiry is not yet over.”
He said Sarabjeet was with Bitta when the police intercepted them but he managed to escape.
“I cannot reveal the motive of the crime at the moment but I can say that it was part of a larger conspiracy than it looked like. We will soon come out with substantial details,” the DGP said.
Sarabjeet and Amarjit, contract killers with Rs 1-lakh bounties on their heads, were hired to kill the religious leader, the police said.
Manjunath T.C., the superintendent of police of Udham Singh Nagar, said: “We have arrested a certain Pargat Singh of Pilibhit, Jaspal Singh and Sukhdev Singh Gill of Bajpur in Udham Singh Nagar in the last 24 hours for their alleged involvement in the crime. We are looking for more suspects before arriving at a conclusion.”
The murder of the Sikh guru has become a political issue in Uttarakhand where polling will be held in five seats on April 19. Opposition parties have alleged that the killing is proof there has been a rise in criminal activities in the hill state.
