Police have arrested her husband Ashok Pandey, Hindu Mahasabha's national spokesperson, and a shooter, Mohammad Fazal, hired for Rs 3 lakh.
Hyderabad: Hindu Mahasabha national secretary Mahamandaleshwar Annapurna Bharti, alias Dr Pooja Shakun Pandey, who hit the headlines for re-enacting the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by shooting his effigy in 2019, is on the run, wanted for the murder of businessman Abhishek Gupta in Aligarh.
Police have arrested her husband Ashok Pandey, Hindu Mahasabha's national spokesperson, and a shooter, Mohammad Fazal, hired for Rs 3 lakh. Aligarh police, who said they had solved the case, said the murder stemmed from personal and financial disputes.
Businessman Abhishek Gupta was gunned down on September 23 at Khereshwar intersection in the Rorawar police station area in UP.
Police said Gupta, once close to Pooja Pandey, had cut ties, blocked her calls, and refused her demand for a partnership in his bike agency business. Enraged, she allegedly paid Fazal Rs 3 lakh to arrange his murder.
Shooter Fazal has been arrested, and Rs 7,200 in cash, a pistol, and cartridges were recovered from him, police said. During questioning, Fazal revealed that his associate Asif fired the fatal shot as Gupta was boarding a bus with his father and cousin.
Asif and Pooja Pandey remain on the run, while her husband, Ashok Pandey, the Hindu Mahasabha's national spokesperson, is in jail in connection with the case.
Gupta's family has accused the Pandey couple of blackmail and money laundering. They claimed Pooja Shakun trapped Abhishek in a relationship despite being married with two children, and used compromising photos and videos to blackmail him for marriage and financial favours. When he resisted and distanced himself, tensions escalated, culminating in the fatal attack.
The case has drawn national attention due to Pooja Pandey's controversial past. She first hit headlines in 2019 for re-enacting Gandhi’s assassination by shooting his effigy. In 2020, she was booked for making inflammatory comments against Tablighi Jamaat members, and in 2021, at the Haridwar Dharam Sansad, she called for armed violence against Muslims, declaring that Hindutva could only be defended "with weapons."
In 2021, after the Union government repealed the farm laws, she removed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's portrait from the Hindu Mahasabha office, mocking him as untrustworthy.
