In a quest to hunt down Swami Pratibhanand, the main conspirator into the murder of multi-billionaire real estate baron Deepak Bhardwaj case, South district police have cast their net far and wide. After scanning the call detail records (CDR) of Swami Pratibhanand, now investigators have started to question all those who were in constant touch with Pratibhanand in the last one year. Police have also stumbled upon the Swami Pratibhanand profile in a social networking website where he mentioned his name — Vichitra Yogi and now a special team of South district police are checking his friend list and calling all of them for the questioning.
Meanwhile, Delhi Police have detained yoga guru Avinash Shastri, one of the associates of Pratibhanand from Indore, and now they are questioning him.
Police sources said that the arrested contract killer, Purushottam Rana alias Monu provided the cell phone number of Swami Pratibhanand which was switched off after the murder of Bhardwaj, the real estate tycoon and politician, who was allegedly gunned down by hired killers at his Rajokari farmhouse recently.
“We have made a list of his contacts especially of all those who were in constant touch with him in the last one year and now we are questioning them and trying to get some lead about the hideouts of Pratibhanand,” the sources added.
Police have already detained one of the associates of Swami Pratibhanand, Anuj from Haridwar and on his instances several raids are being conducted in Haridwar, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. “It has been also emerged that Swami Pratibhanand is a native of Nasik in Maharashtra and he fled from his home when he was 11 years old,” the sources said.
In a related development, Delhi Police have also detained one yoga guru, Avinash Shastri, who is also a member of Bangarda gram panchayat, on late Thursday night from Indore. During interrogation, the detained 40-year-old Shastri told the police that Pratibhanand had stayed for two days recently at an ashram in Devdharam Tikri on the banks of Narmada River in Indore but had left the place on Wednesday evening.
“Avinash gave shelter to the Swami at the ashram for two days. After the interrogation of Anuj and with the help of technical surveillances, investigators traced Swami Pratibhanand’s location around Indore, after which it raided the Devdharam Tikri Ashram on Thursday night, but failed to nab him as he had left the place a day ago,” the sources added.