Teotia murder attempt: 4 held

LUCKNOW: Cracking the case of murderous assault on BJP leader

Brijpal Teotia

, UP police's special task force arrested four men late on Tuesday night.

The AK-47-weilding assailants had fatally injured Teotia and five of his aides in the August 11 attack. However, the main accused - brother-duo Manish and

Manoj Dewan

and their cousin Vicky - are yet to be traced and only their accomplices have been nabbed. It is yet not known who provided automatic firearms, arranged for vehicles, provided money and logistics for the gang.

Elaborating on the motive, ADG law and order

Daljit Singh Chawdhary

said the

Dewan

brothers had reportedly sworn revenge 17 years ago when their father Suresh, a constable in UP police, was gunned down in Delhi in 1999. A police constable in Delhi police back then, Teotia was named as the prime accused but was given the clean chit later on.

Both Suresh and Teotia were from

Mehrauli

and were arch rivals. The battle of one-upmanship dates back to 1984 and led to at least six murders between the two camps, said Chawdhary.

Around 7.20pm on August 11, Manish and his accomplices sprayed more than 80 bullets at Teotia who was in a Mahindra Scorpio. Multiple AK-47, 9mm pistol and .30 carbine were used in the crime. Teotia suffered five gunshot wounds and five of his aides who were travelling with him at that time were left fatally injured.

STF SSP Amit Pathak said that of the people at loggerheads with Teotia since early 80s, "Manish, Manoj, their cousins and close friends were found missing. Their numbers were also not active." DySP

Raj Kumar Mishra

, from STF's Noida unit, was put on the job and the first set of clues emerged.

CCTV

footage installed at various points, showed Teotia had a tail on the fateful day.

Grabs of person riding

Honda Activa

while following Teotia's SUV was enhanced. With the help of mobile surveillance, sleuths also found cell phone numbers which were used to make phone calls. Mobile towers located on the route which connects

Ravali

road to

Duhai

were scanned.

It became clear that Manish's associate from Mehrauli,

Ram Singh

, was present at the scene of crime. He led the cops to the three others; Nishant Bhadauria and Jitendra Singh from Ghaziabad and Rahul Tyagi from Baghpat. As evidence, police have retrieved the recording of the voice calls the four arrested members on August 11 from their cell phones,

Honda

Activa used to conduct recce, CCTV footage of Activa and its rider Ram Singh, witness accounts and have their hopes on cross-match of fingerprint samples lifted from crime scene.Pathak said that efforts to trace Manish, Manoj, Vicky and others were on.kill BJP leader from Muradnagar, Ghaziabad,

Police claimed the plot was hatched in Mehrauli three days before the attack. They said as many as 18 people had gathered at Manish's house in Mehrauli with the common agenda of finding a way to eliminate the BJP leader from Muradnagar.

Three days before the hit on BJP functionary Brijpal Teotia was executed, all his rivals had gathered in Mehrauli, a village located across

National Highway 24

in Ghaziabad district. There were 18 people who attended the panchayat organized at

Manish Dewan

's house. The agenda of the meeting,

Teotia

, a common enemy, had to be eliminated.