Two men were arrested in Udaipur for conspiring the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal and were produced in a local court on Friday.
The court of the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) granted one-day transit remand of the duo — Mohsin and Asif. They will now be produced in designated National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jaipur on Saturday by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), an advocate appearing in the case said.
Tailor Kanhaiya Lal was killed on Tuesday in Udaipur by two cleaver-wielding men —Riaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad— who made a video of the killing and shared it online. Both the main accused were arrested in Rajsamand hours later.
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In a video released after the killing, they confessed to it and said it was in response to disrespect shown to Prophet Muhammed. They further said, "Gustakh-e-Nabi ki ek hi saza, sar tan se juda." It roughly translates to "there is only one punishment to disrespecting the Prophet, beheading".
Additional Director General (SOG and ATS) Ashok Rathore said Mohsin and Asif were arrested on Thursday night for criminal conspiracy and conducing a recce of Kanhaiya Lal's shop.
"The two are co-conspirators in the murder of Kanhaiya Lal and are being interrogated," an official had said in the morning.
Rathore said the main accused have been shifted to high security prison in Ajmer after they were granted judicial custody by a court on Thursday.
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The case is being investigated by the NIA with support of the ATS and Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police. The Udaipur district court directed the Rajasthan Police to hand over the case diary to NIA. The NIA will investigate the case after formalities of the case transfer are completed.
It has been reported that the bike used by the two main accused to escape after their crime had the registration number "2611" in a possible reference to 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Riaz Akhtari had paid Rs 1,000 to obtain the number of his choice for the motorcycle which he had bought in March 2013, officials said.
In a separate development, members of the Jain community demanded more security for a resident of an Udaipur locality mentioned in the video clip posted by the alleged killers of Kanhaiya Lal. The community members met the district collector and handed over a memorandum pressing for enhanced security for tyre trader Nitin Jain and his family, who live in Sector 11.
Riaz Akhtari had mentioned in a video that some people living in Sector 11 should also be beheaded. After the video surfaced online following Kanhaiya Lal's murder, Jain said a police complaint had also been filed against him by a Muslim man several days back as he too had shared a social media post in support of former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) functionary Nupur Sharma.
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The Udaipur Police has already deputed two policemen outside the house of Nitin Jain and members of the community have demanded more security to ensure that another incident like Kanhaiya Lal's murder does not happen.
(With PTI inputs)
