Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, February 3
Within an hour of Patna senior Superintendent of Police claiming to solve the Rupesh Kumar Singh murder case, victim’s widow Nitu Singh contested the theory and termed it an eye wash to save the real culprit.
Rupesh Kumar Singh, the 38-years-old station manager of Indigo at Patna airport, was shot dead by a fresher in crime for road rage.
According to Senior SP of Patna Upendra Kumar Sharma, police have arrested a youth identified as Rituraj, who had fired six rounds on Rupesh killing him on the spot outside his residence on January 12 evening. “The two riders-Rupesh on his SUV and Rituraj on his motorcycle had clashed on November 29 last at Sardar Patel Chowk near Patna airport.” Rituraj took revenge on January 12. Sharma narrated the sequences that unfolded after the incident.
“Whatever Saheb (SSP) has said is 100 per cent true,” Rituraj said when produced before the media persons during the briefing. According to Rituraj, after firing “unknown number of bullets” on the victim, he went to his house at Kanhainagar in southern Patna. Next day, he purchased four local newspapers and only after reading the reports came to know about the VIP status of Rupesh Kumar Singh. He immediately left for Ranchi and visited Deoghar and Patratu also.
He said he was going through the television news reports on the progress of the investigation of the case and also reading newspapers to know the path of police investigation.” Three of his associates are yet to be arrested.
A Geography honours from New Delhi and a former employee of a bank at Jaipur, Rituraj alleged since he was assaulted by Rupesh, he decided to kill him and attempted four times before the murder.
Rituraj comes from a prosperous family of Ghosi in Jahanabad district and his father has a series of brick kilns at Naubatpur on the outskirts of Patna. Rituraj has no criminal antecedents, never went to jail nor had been arrested by police in the past, according to the SSP. He said he had a hobby of keeping pistols and stealing four to five motorcycles every month. He committed the crime by going to Rupesh’s apartment on a motorcycle stolen from Darbhanga, 200 kms from Patna.
Police claimed it reached Rituraj after its men trekked 100 kms, examined 200 CCTVs and 4000 call details records of mobile sets and technical analysis of 600 GB data. SSP clarified: “We did not cook up the theory of road rage in such a sensational crime. It was not a contract killing either.”
Police recovered the pistol, motorcycle and clothes used by Rituraj at the time of crime. It recovered four unused bullets too, according to the SSP.
Bihar police had constituted four different teams of Patna police, SIT, STF and FSL to investigate the high -profile murder in the VIP area, close to State Secretariat, residence of the Chief Minister.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was personally monitoring the investigation of the case and had summoned DG of police S K Singhal twice to know the status of probe. Ministers, MPs, senior IAS officers had visited the village of Rupesh Kumar Singh in Saran district. Leader of opposition, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, senior leaders, former president of Pradesh Congress committee, Ramjatan Sinha, former ministers Ms Veena Sahi, Ajit Kumar, Suresh Sharma also went to his village. Chairman-cum-managing director of Indigo also met his family in the village
Nitu Singh told TV channels and strongly disputed police theory of road rage as motive for murder. There was no dispute, no argument and the place of so-called scuffle is false, she said, adding that the main culprit has not been arrested. “I am not satisfied with the investigation,” she said.
