Madhya Pradesh: Key Accused in Sagar Hooch Tragedy Arrested After Gunfight
A country-made .315-bore pistol, three live cartridges, three empty cartridges, a mobile phone and a motorcycle were recovered from his possession.
Bhopal: An accused in the Sagar hooch tragedy which had unofficially claimed the lives of 28 people was on Sunday arrested after a brief encounter with the police in a jungle in Madhya Pradesh.
The accused, identified as Shivanjay Rajput (21), was fleeing on his two-wheeler in the Kathua Nala forest in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district while opening fire on a police team trailing him, when he was shot in the leg by the police and subsequently arrested.
He carried a bounty of Rs 30,000 for his alleged involvement in the liquor tragedy.
The official death toll is put at 16.
However, unofficially, the spurious liquor has claimed the lives of 28 people so far.
According to Sagar police control room in-charge R K Chauhan, Rajput was arrested and later taken to the local hospital for treatment.
His condition was stated to be stable.
A country-made .315-bore pistol, three live cartridges, three empty cartridges, a mobile phone and a motor cycle were recovered from his possession, police said.
With this, 19 of the 33 people, named in the FIR filed in connection with the incident, have so far been arrested, police said.
A couple of days back, key accused in the incident Ravi Lakhera was arrested after a brief encounter with the police in a forest in Sagar district.
In a related development, Sagar district collector Pratibha Pal has ordered revocation of licences of firearms of all the accused in the incident.
Meanwhile, the general administration (GA) department of the Madhya Pradesh government has issued a notification appointing retired judge of MP high court Justice Vishnu Pratap Singh Chauhan to head a one-man judicial commission to probe the incident.
He has been asked to submit his report within three months.
In another development, former chief minister and veteran Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who visited the families of the deceased in Banda, claimed that at least 45 people died in the Sagar hooch tragedy and accused the state government of covering up the deaths.
