The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Barrackpore police commissionerate has late on Sunday night arrested Sujal Shaw, the prime accused in the murder of Bhatpara’s Trinamool Congress leader Ashok Shaw, while he was attempting to flee the state.
Cops apprehended Sujal, along with alleged acomplice Sunny Das, from Burdwan railway station and seized two improvised firearms on them. The duo were brought to Bhatpara on Monday and produced before a Barrackpore court, which remanded them in police custody for 10 days.
Ashok, the former president of Trinamool ward 12 organisational committee, was shot dead on November 13 at a tea stall on Ghosh Para Road. The attack, which occurred 50 metres from Jagaddal police station, happened on the day of the Assembly bypoll in neighbouring Naihati.
According to the police, Sujal fled to Bihar to evade arrest but returned to Bengal in an attempt to mislead investigators before planning another escape.
With the arrests of Sujal and Sunny, police have so far nabbed four persons. The SIT arrested Kausar Ali last Thursday. He gave crucial inputs about Sujan Paswan, who was arrested on Saturday. Interrogation of Kausar and Sujan led cops to Sujal.
The SIT, led by DC North Ganesh Biswas and supervised by ADG CID Vishal Garg, executed the operation to capture the prime accused.
Barrackpore police commissioner Alok Rajoria said on Monday: “Our investigation revealed the involvement of five individuals in the murder, apart from others named in the FIR. Sujal had been implicated in a previous attempt on Ashok Shaw’s life, which prompted us to track him closely.”
Last year, Ashok survived a murder bid reportedly linked to Sujal. On November 13, eyewitnesses claimed Sujal led the fatal attack.
The police suspect the murder was an act of retribution for the 2020 lynching of Sujal’s brother, Akash, a drug dealer. Ashok, an accused in Akash’s lynching, had allegedly become a target of Sujal’s family. Investigators believe Sujal organised a group from Kalabagan in Bhatpara to avenge his brother’s death.
