An undertrial provided the vital lead

LUCKNOW: A CBI team led by Deputy Inspector General (DIG) CBI Loknath Behra, managed the breakthrough in the Madhumita murder case after tracking down Raju Pandey, an undertrial lodged in Pilibhit jail.
According to sources, the team reached Pilibhit on September 7 and questioned Pandey who has seven criminal cases against him. He was quizzed again on Sunday and enough evidence was garnered to arrest Amarmani Tripathi.
Pandey, a relative of Amarmani’s wife Madhumani, is wanted in connection with a kidnapping and murder case lodged with the Pilibhit police on Februrary 2 this year.He is accused in the abduction of a son of an affluent farmer Baldeo Singh.
The much publicised case got the police cracking and the SSP Pilibhit Safi Rizvi managed to trace another accused in the case Agnihotri, a listed aide of Pandey.
During interrogation, Agnihotri revealed that Baldeo Singh’s son, Goldie, was kidnapped by Raju Pandey and killed while in captivity. He then fled Pilibhit, Agnihotri informed the police who later recovered the body of Goldie and attached the property of Raju Pandey as he was on the run.
Initially, Raju took refuge at the house of a minister in the Mayawati cabinet. But as the minister came to know about Raju’s misdeeds, he shunted him out. Thereafter he reached the safe confines of Amarmani’s house at Lawrence Terrace where he was reportedly given a fresh name: Satya Prakash. This is the name which one of the assailants had identified himself with when met the poetess on the fateful day.
After his property was attached by Pilibhit and the CBI here turned the heat on the assailants of Madhumita, Raju Pandey surrendered before the court in Pilibhit in August. Raju Pandey was handed over to the police on a four-day remand.
"Police got the gold chain and wrist watch of the deceased during his remand and since then he has been in jail," according to Safi Rizvi.
Pandey is believed to have told the CBI that he was in Lucknow when Madhumita was murdered and how Amarmani was linked to the killing. Pandey also told the CBI details about the second assailant involved in Madhumita’s murder. With this information at hand, the CBI arrested Tripathi.