Police crack eatery owner murder case, 5 held

RANCHI: In a major breakthrough, the Ranchi police cracked the murder case of restaurant owner Sushil Minz and arrested five accused involved in the case.
Motorcycle-borne criminals killed Minz on March 7 evening while he was speaking to some of his associates. On Monday, the police raided a hideout at Krishanpuri locality under the Chutia police station where the mastermind of the crime, Lakhan Singh, was staying.
Lakhan Singh, however, managed to flee by running over the parapet of neighbouring houses in the colony but his associate Trilok Badaik was arrested by the police with a 9 mm pistol and Rs 3.44 lakh in cash.
"We have seized 13 cellphones with eight SIM cards from Badaik's possession through which Singh used to give extortion calls to city businessmen," SSP Praveen Singh said.
He added that four of his associates Hemant Gaddi, Basudev Singh, Kishun Munda and Satish Mahato involved in Minz's murder had been arrested.
Praveen Singh said that the accused Hemant Gaddi had gone to visit Minz, a day before the murder. "Gaddi has confessed that he had made a call to his boss Lakhan Singh to make Minz talk to him," he said.
"More arrests are likely on the basis of information given by the associates arrested and hopefully we will soon be able to arrest the mastermind behind Minz's killing," Singh said.
"Preliminary investigations suggest that Lakhan Singh used to target people involved in real estate business and settled disputes over land deals," the SSP said.
In another incident, a newly wed woman, Richa Singh, committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of her multi-storeyed apartment Maa Tara on Tuesday morning.
Officer in-charge of Lower Bazaar B N Singh said that it appears that the deceased had some dispute with her husband who had returned from an official tour from Goa on Monday and subsequently decided to take the extreme step on early Tuesday morning.
Singh said that the police are investigating the case. No suicidal note has been found.