In a joint operation, two shooters accused of gunning down Indian National Lok Dal chief Nafe Singh Rathee and a party worker were arrested from Goa, police said. Haryana police are on the lookout for two other accused in the case.
According to police, two of the accused - Ashish and Saurabh - were arrested from North Goa in a joint operation by the Haryana Police's Special Task Force, the Jhajjar Police and the Delhi Police's Special Cell. The accused were arrested from a hotel in Goa and they will be brought to Delhi by afternoon, police said.
Jhajjar police said they are on the lookout for two other accused in the case–Nakul and Atul–and police have recovered the car used by the accused. Jhajjar SP Arpit Jain said the car was recovered near Rewari Railway Station.
According to police, Ashish and Saurabh--residents of Delhi's Nangloi--are associates of UK-based gangster Kapil Sangwan, who, through a purported social media post, took responsibility for killing Rathee.
Rathee, the president of the Indian National Lok Dal's (INLD) Haryana unit, and party worker Jai Kishan were killed after multiple rounds were fired on their vehicle in Bahadurgarh in the state's Jhajjar district on February 25.
Jhajjar police had named former BJP MLA Naresh Kaushik and others in the FIR registered after the incident. The case was registered under various Indian Penal Code sections, including 302 (murder), and the Arms Act.
In his police complaint, Rathee's nephew Rakesh had said five unidentified killers, who were following them in a car, came out and fired indiscriminately near the Barahi railway crossing.
Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij had recently said in the state assembly that the probe into the killings will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Senior INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala has accused the BJP-JJP government in Haryana of failing to provide security to Rathee, despite there being a threat to his life.
-with PTI inputs.