Madhya Pradesh: VHP man's murder linked to bizman's killing?

INDORE: Mandsaur police on Thursday said they had cracked the murder of VHP leader Yuvraj Singh Chouhan and are investigating possible links with the sensational shooting of Indore businessman Sandeep Agrawal in January.


Yuvraj was shot dead at point blank range at a tea stall in Mandsaur on Wednesday, triggering a political storm.

BJP accuses the Congress government of failing to maintain law and order and has demanded an SIT to investigate the murder.

On Thursday, after interrogating 35 people, police said Yuvraj was killed because of cable business rivalry and they have identified four suspects — Deepak Tanwar, Ankit Tanwar, Faizan alias Chotu and Nagesh Lala Goswami. Ankit, Faizan and Nagesh were the shooters and Deepak had contracted the killing, Mandsaur SP Hitesh Choudhary told reporters. There is no arrest yet. Two other suspects — Anil Daaring and Ashrad Khan — have been detained as they had allegedly conducted a recce of the area before the murder.

In a stunning twist to the case, SP Choudhary told TOI that police were connecting the dots between Yuvraj’s murder and the contract killing of Indore businessman Sandeep Agrawal, which was allegedly masterminded by Sudhakar Rao Maratha for a supari of Rs 5 crore. Yuvraj was a very close aide of Maratha and acted as “mediator” between him and Rohit Sethi, prime accused in Agrawal’s murder, said police.

After Maratha’s arrest, Yuvraj was handling his cable TV operations in Mandsaur. Police are investigating if his murder was a revenge killing by some people associated with Agrawal. “We are looking into all angles in the case,” said Choudhary. Police sources told TOI that a Mandsaur police team has been sent to Indore to get details about the Sandeep Agarwal murder case and Maratha’s associations with Yuvraj.

Police suspect Yuvraj’s murder was planned in Indore. The SP said Deepak fostered a business rivalry with Yuvraj and they also had a property dispute. Investigation revealed that three cases of fraud, Arms Act and Copyright Act were registered against Yuvraj in Mandsaur and Ratlam, while Deepak and Faizan faced several cases of attempted murder and forgery.

“We are very close to arresting the accused. More information about Yuvraj and his associations is being collected from his business partners and family members,” said the SP.

Agarwal was murdered in front of a business complex at Vijay Nagar Square on January 16 — the grisly shooting caught on CCTV. Police named businessman Rohit Sethi as prime accused and said he had given a supari of Rs 5 crore to Maratha to kill Agrawal. Maratha was arrested a week after the shooting and Sethi was nabbed from Dehardun after over a month on the run.

A large number of BJP workers went to the SPs office on Thursday and submitted a memorandum demanding formation of an SIT to probe the case. Hundreds of political leaders attended Yuvraj’s creation, which was carried out under heavy police security on Thursday.