Jamshedpur, Dec. 28: Police on Wednesday brought two criminals, including notorious criminal Manoj Sarkar on transit remand from Kharagpur in West Bengal in connection with the murder of railway contractor Vijay Pandey in Burmamines police station in September last year.
The police also recovered two loaded pistols, 48 sets of cell-phones and a motorcycle from Manoj, who is a resident of Parsudih locality of the city.
The other criminal arrested along with Manoj has been identified as Domnic (27) and another criminal arrested in the case was identified as Adhir Pradhan (28), who is a resident of Pindki village in Seraikela.
Senior superintendent of police, Anoop T Mathew said that its is a major achievement. On September 6 last year, Pandey who was a railway contractor was shot dead by a gang of criminal near his house at Burmamines.
He said during investigation, the name of Titu Sharma and Manoj Sarkar had figured in the investigation. The police arrested Titu, but Manoj had managed to abscond. He said after they got to know about Manoj’s fleeing the city, they had declared a reward of Rs 1 lakh leading to the arrest of Manoj.
“Acting on a tip off we nabbed a 28-year-old youth Hari Mahto for allegedly involved in Pandey murder case. We interrogated Mahto and on an information that Manoj had taken shelter in a residential flat at Kharagpur. A team led by deputy superintendent of police (law and order) Vimal Kumar conducted a raid at the flat in Kharagpur from where Manoj was arrested along with his associate Domnic,” said the senior police officer.
Speaking on the reason behind Pandey’s murder, the senior SP said as per their investigation Manoj would bag railway contract and would offload the tender to other party at three or four percent profit margin. Manoj had warned Pandey not to participate in a railway tender in Tatanagar, but the latter had disobeyed. As a result of which, Manoj murdered the contractor.”
According to the senior police officer, Manoj was also involved in the murder of trader Patel Mahto in Keonjhar district in Odisha in March 2008 and in the murder of a railway contractor Balram Singh in Chakradharpur in May this year.