New Delhi: When a silver-coloured four-wheeler rolled through the Nivedita Setu toll plaza near Kolkata on the night of 6 May, its occupants chose to pay by UPI rather than FASTag. In doing so, they left behind a digital trace. Five days later, an inter-state team led by the West Bengal Police arrested three men from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for the alleged murder of Chandranath Rath, personal assistant to newly elected Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
Police said the three accused—Raj Mishra and Vicky Maurya, held from Bihar’s Buxar, and Raj Singh, arrested from UP’s Ballia—are hired killers.
Maurya alone is an accused in 15 other criminal cases for robbery and murder.
“On tracking CCTV footage and UPI payment made at the Nivedita Setu toll plaza on 6 May, we tracked the three of the accused. We suspect that an interstate criminal link is involved,” a senior West Bengal Police officer told The Print.
The accused, the officer said, had deliberately bypassed FASTag and paid through UPI—a choice that handed investigators a precise record of their vehicle’s movement.
The three of them, police alleged, were in the car that blocked Rath’s vehicle before the shooting.
Rath was shot dead between 10 pm and 10:10 pm on 6 May, less than 200 metres from his residence in Madhyamgram in West Bengal’s 24 Parganas district. His car was blocked by a silver-coloured four-wheeler, forcing it to come to a halt. Four assailants on two bikes then opened fire and fled. “The deceased was on his way back home, when Rath was shot three times at point-blank range in the presence of his driver, Buddhadeb Bera,” police said.
The shooting took place two days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won its first assembly election with an outright majority in West Bengal. Rath was believed to be central to mobilising support in both Nandigram and Bhabanipur, the constituencies from which Adhikari won. Adhikari, earlier this week, alleged that Rath was killed because he was an aide. “He (Rath) was killed because he was my aide and I defeated Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur. This could be the reason for his murder,” Adhikari had said.
There have been multiple incidents of violence in West Bengal since election results were declared on 4 May. These, including vandalism of offices linked to Trinamool Congress leaders, have triggered accusations of political violence against both the BJP and TMC.
Police said CCTV footage and Bera’s statement helped investigators reconstruct the sequence. Police later tracked two motorbikes allegedly used in the attack—one near Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata and another near rail gates 11 and 12 in Barasat ( North 24 Parganas). One of the bikes, registered in the name of Vibhash Kumar Bhattacharya in 2012, had been reported stolen.
“The three suspects have so far been arrested in connection with the murder of Chandranath Rath. We have sent multiple teams to Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh for further investigation,” the officer quoted above said.
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Family of suspect denies charges
After Raj Misha’s arrest, his mother told reporters that she was in Lucknow with him to attend a relative’s wedding on the day of the murder.
“My son Raj, driver, Raj’s friend Monu and I went to Lucknow, where we all stayed at a guest house near the wedding venue,” she said.
She alleged that police were falsely implicating her son.
“I do not know why my son is being implicated (in the case). He should get justice. I urge the government to examine all the evidence. I have proof that he was in Lucknow—he was shopping in the market, he went to the gym, and his mobile phone records should be tracked and verified,” she added.
The trio has been charged at Madhyamgram police station under sections 103(1) (murder), 112(a) (petty organised crime), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 3(5) (common intention) and 61(1) (criminal conspiracy) of BNS.
Produced before a Barasat court, they were remanded to 13-day police custody Monday.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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