The call detail records (CDR) of Baljeet Singh Sherawat, Nitesh Bhardwaj, Swami Pratibhanand and Purushottam Rana helped investigators in decoding the mystery behind the planned conspiracy into the murder of real estate baron and politician Deepak Bhardwaj.
The special task force (STF) of South district police scanned the CDR of all the suspects and managed to cull out the conspirators from a maze of suspects. It took them sometime before unraveling the mystery as they wanted to be doubly sure about the motive and conspiracy.
Sources said that they suspected the involvement of an insider in the murder of Bhardwaj. The role of his two sons and wife came under the scanner as the probe progressed. Initially the investigators had asked the family members to provide the mobile phone numbers but they were evasive. Their conduct was highly unbecoming and they deliberately withheld the number of family friend Baljeet Singh Sherawat.
Nitesh, the younger son was accorded special attention by the investigators and they finally zeroed upon his call details. It was revealed that he was in regular touch with Sherawat on October 2012 till January 29 month but he did not share any information about him with the investigators. He was questioned again but he mislead the investigators after cooking up stories and claimed that Sherawat was looking after his legal matters. "After the arrest of the two hired contract killers Purushottam Rana, alias Monu, and Sunil Mann, police came to know about the missing link to be that as Machendranath, alias Swami Pratibhnand (48). The contract killers were put to some hard questioning and they spilled the beans that it was Sherawat who was in fact the axis and he had roped in Pratibhanand for the job.
Investigators were shocked after they scanned the call data records of Sherawat, Purushottam Rana and Sunil Mann. "After scanning the CDR, sleuths found that Swami was in constant touch with Sherawat and Rana. Sherawat was a close associate of Nitesh," sources added.
After establishing the crucial technical evidence, Nitesh was detained on Monday afternoon and was confronted in the light of irrefutable evidences including his numerous calls with Sherawat. "We showed him all the technical evidences. He broke down and confessed that he planned the conspiracy to eliminate his father Deepak Bhardwaj", DCP South district Chhaya Sharma said.