Jharkhand-based Kalebar Singh had engaged a sharpshooter from Bokaro and hired an improvised revolver from him to kill Jhalda Congress councillor Tapan Kandu on March 13, CBI sources said.

Singh, also from Bokaro, spent Rs 1 lakh to pay the sharpshooter and hire the revolver, the CBI sources added.

CBI officials visited several places in Bokaro with Singh looking for the sharpshooter in the past five days but could not find him.

The CBI sources said Singh was driving the motorbike wearing a helmet and the sharpshooter was riding pillion along with another person. The three were armed. “The sharpshooter had been assigned to shoot Tapan. Singh had identified him as the target on the spot. Singh also had a plan B in place. If the sharpshooter had failed in the job, the other person and Singh would shoot Tapan,” said a CBI source.

The sharpshooter had fired four rounds but one got stuck inside the revolver while three bullets hit Tapan, the CBI sources said.

According to the investigators, Singh fled on the motorbike immediately after the murder. The road they used to flee had a check-post and a mobile police unit was checking vehicles. The role of five policemen on duty at the check-post had come under scanner and were taken off duty as punishment.

During interrogations, the five policemen, including the driver of the police vehicle, told the CBI that they had been instructed by their “superiors” not to respond and remain indifferent.

Singh got the assignment to murder Tapan from Mohammad Ashik Khan, a poultry shop owner in Jhalda, and Satyaban Pramanik, who is a Group D employee at a government-run high school in Jhalda.

Tapan’s cousin Naren Kandu had hired Singh against a payment of Rs 7 lakh through Ashik and Satyaban. The murder was planned at a hotel jointly owned by Naren and Satyaban at Jhalda town in Purulia district.

Singh was spotted in Jhalda town on the day of Tapan’s murder riding pillion on a motorbike in the CCTV footage the CBI had collected from Jhalda police station. The person who was driving wearing a helmet was identified as Jayant Singh also from Bokaro. Kalebar told the CBI that Jayant was his relative who lives in Bokaro.

Kalebar was produced in the chief judicial magistrate court in Purulia after his five days of CBI custody ended on Friday. He was remanded in judicial custody till April 27. While he was being taken to the court, Kalebar claimed innocence. “I had come to Jhalda to visit my relatives but police wrongfully tagged me in the murder,” he told media persons.