Nitesh Bhardwaj, younger son of Deepak Bhardwaj and his partner in crime Baljeet Singh Shehrawat have been remanded to six days of police custody.
The Investigating Officer of Deepak Bhrdwaj murder case submitted before the court that they needed to recover Nitesh’s mobile handset and the SIM card that he used to converse with Sherawat and fugitive Swami Pratibhanand.
The IO also submitted that they need to investigate the money trail and amount that was paid to Shehrawat by Nitesh and later was distributed among killers and Pratibhnand. The police also told the court that the motive behind murder was not clear and it needed time to investigate it.
Metropolitan Magistrate Prashant Sharma remanded Nitesh and lawyer Baljeet Singh Shehrawat in police custody till April 16. South district police had arrested Nitesh (31) and Sherwart (51) on Tuesday.
DCP, South district Chhaya Sharma has said that it was Nitesh who gave Rs 5 crore contract to Shehrawat who in turn had entrusted the job to a self-styled godman Pratibhanand who has been on the run two days before Bhardwaj was murdered on March 26.
“The accused persons were arrested on April 9. Allegations against them are serious in nature. Investigation is still at a nascent stage,” the court noted. “It is specified in the application that co-accused persons have to be traced, SIM cards used by the accused persons have to be unearthed, amounts involved in this case have to be recovered, raids on the possible hideouts of co-accused persons at Dehradun, Solan, Vrindawan and Hardwar have to be made and motives of accused persons have to be investigated vis-a-vis their criminal conspiracy in offence in question”, it stated.
“The said aspects of this case need detailed investigation. Therefore, the present application moved by the IO is allowed. Accused persons, namely Nitesh and Baljeet Singh, are sent to six days police custody remand,” the magistrate said.
While seeking the six days of police remand for both the accused, the IO said that the investigation in the case is at an initial stage and they needed to interrogate them to establish the chain of events which led to the crime.
While seeking Nitesh’s remand, police told the court that there must have been a “strong motive” behind the crime as he allegedly planned to kill his father and they are yet to ascertain the motive.
The police remand application moved by the IO said that Nitesh had used a mobile phone during the period when the conspiracy was hatched and had allegedly destroyed it after the crime and the police needed to recover the SIM cards which the accused persons were using at that time and also establish the motive behind the murder.
While seeking Shehrawat’s custodial remand, the IO prayed that he was required to be interrogated in custody as he is aware of the whereabouts of the absconding godman Pratibhnandand could give important information about him as Pratibhanand used to visit Shehrawat’s house quite often.Police further said it had to trace the source and trail of the money transacted in the crime.
Opposing the police’s plea for custody, senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, appearing for Nitesh, argued there was no ground for arresting the accused as they were cooperating in the investigation.
Gupta said, “the DCP had on Tuesday revealed on camera the motive of the crime and now the prosecutor is saying that they have to ascertain the motive behind it.””This is totally a fake argument,” he said adding police have to satisfy the court as to why they have arrested both the accused.
The counsel for the accused also contended that was was no evidence against the accused and if the police wanted to retrieve their call records, they could get it from the mobile service providers. Shehrawat’s advocate Pradeep Arya too opposed the remand pplication saying police just want to “harass” his client. The defence counsel said there was no justifiable ground to remand the accused persons to police custody.