Self-styled godman Baba Pratibhanand allegedly involved in the 2013 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party leader and businessman Deepak Bhardwaj was arrested from a railway station in Ghaziabad by a police team led by Superintendent of Police (City) Akash Tomar on Friday night, police said on Saturday.
Machhendra Nath, alias Baba Pratibhanand, a resident of Beed (Maharashtra), had been on the run for four years after Bhardwaj was shot dead in his farmhouse near the Gurugram toll plaza on March 26, 2013, police added.
A police team swooped on the railway station following a tip-off about the fugitive Pratibhanand’s presence and arrested him, said Senior Superintendent of Ghaziabad Police HN Singh on Saturday. A 32 bore pistol and cartridges were seized from him, he added.
During the interrogation, Pratibhanand, on whose head Delhi Police had placed a Rs 1 lakh bounty, confessed that while selling ayurvedic medicines in a temple, he had come in contact with lawyer Baljeet Sahrawat, through whom he came into touch with Bhardwaj’s younger son Nitesh.
Nitesh and his mother were not good relations with Bhardwaj over property and hired Pratibhanand to eliminate him for Rs 5 crore.
Out of this, Rs 50 lakh was paid in advance to buy weapons and other items like vehicles for the assailants. Pratibhanand got his driver Purshottam Rana and others to eliminate Bhardwaj.
The godman also told police that he had agreed to get Bhardwaj murdered so he could have enough money to establish an ashram in Haridwar and fulfil his childhood dream of heading a ‘Mutt’.
Deepak Bhardwaj was shot dead at his 34 acre Nitesh Kunj farmhouse near Gurgaon toll plaza on NH-8. According to Delhi police two to three criminals on motorcycle shot Deepak dead. The accused Baba Pratibhanand remained elusive since then, added the SSP.
“During last four years, he was travelling through Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh,” said the SSP.
Bhardwaj, who had contested the lok Sabha election on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket in 2009, was the richest candidate in Delhi, having declared assets worth Rs 600 crore.
Earlier in 2013, Bhardwaj’s younger son Nitesh confessed that he got his father killed by engaging assailants provided by Pratibhanand. He held a grudge against his father for refusing to give a share in his (Bhardwaj’s) property to him. The murder conspiracy was hatched six months prior to the killing.
The Ghaziabad police said they would soon get in touch with their counterparts in Delhi, who are investigating the murder case.