Swami Pratibhanand, the fugitive Godman wanted in the murder case of real estate baron Deepak Bhardwaj, is proving to be a tough nut to crack for the Delhi Police as over a dozen of teams have failed to locate him. Originally hailing from Sholapur district in Maharashtra, this maverick swami has no listed address and is single. It has sent the police on a wild goose chase.
Meanwhile, Vasant Kunj (South) police station issued a look out notice and latest photograph of Machendranath @ Pratibhanand s/o Chormal Namdev. The police said in the notice that identity of informer will be kept secret and suitable reward will be given.
Investigations have revealed that Swami was introduced to Bhardwaj by a Delhi-based lawyer and the duo entered in several land deals. Police are also scanning several suspect bank accounts to identify the money trail but to no avail. Police have managed to decode the entire controversy and the players involved into it but unless it arrest Pratibhanand, it will be a tough task to piece together evidences in the sensational murder. Investigators are faced with the piquant situation if the Swami is not arrested. They know the case will not stand the scrutiny of the law in the absence of the accused that hatched the conspiracy and hired the killers.
Pratibhanand playing Houdini has flummoxed the investigators. They have questioned over 50 people — including the two contract killers Purushottam Rana alias Monu and Sunil Mann to get more information about Pratibhanand and his land deals. Sources said he was involved in several lucrative land deals with Bhardwaj and what prompted him to hire contract killers is not still clearIJ Investigators have questioned Ramesh Kumari, the wife of slain BSP leader, and the two sons — Hitesh and Nitesh.
There are strong reasons for the police to believe that Bhardwaj was a bully and was not supporting his family. He was even pressurising his wife and the two sons to forsake the management of two schools that they were running. land dispute with Pratibhanand is a solid reason for hired killers being given the Supari to eliminate Bhardwaj but his family members have not been given clean chit by the police. They are very much under the lens, a police added.
Despite having arrested the two contract killers and Amit the driver of the getaway car, South district police have not achieved success in cracking the mystery behind the murder of Bhardwaj on March 26 last. Police probe has got stuck over Pratibhanand's role and if he manages to get out of the country, the police will be faced with the Herculean task of proving the conspiracy theory.
Police have questioned Anuj from Hardwar who is a close aide of the missing Swami. They have also questioned Avinash Shatri who was brought from Indore to shed light on Pratibhanand's whereabouts but without success. Office bearers of Hindu Mahasabha's office at Mandir Marg in New Delhi have been spoken to in detail but nothing concrete has come out of it, a police official added. Pratibhanand was a regular here but stopped coming due to certain reasons and since he went untraceable, they said.
A team of officers has been interrogating Purushottam and Sunil and their statements are being cross-checked. They had initially tried to mislead police. Scanning of their mobile phones led the sleuths to zero in on the activities of Pratibhanand. Purushottam had told the police that he was promised Rs 1 crore for the job and was trying to get in touch with the Swami for the money. Police have been trying to establish the money trail and the people involved into it but the efforts have not yielded desired results.
The fact that nobody really knows the real name and address of mysterious Swami has led the investigators to widen their probe across the length and breadth of many States. Scores of raids in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra to nab the main conspirator have drawn a blank so far, the source said.