Siwan (Bihar): Hitting out at the Nitish Kumar government for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party today hinted at a possible connection of former RJD leader and Siwan strong man Mohd Shahabuddin in the murder of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan.
According to the BJP, Rajdeo was involved in writings that exposed the alleged wrongdoings of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and its former MP.
“According to reports, murdered journalist Rajdeo Ranjan used to expose wrongdoings of RJD and its former MP Shahabuddin,” BJP said on Saturday.
As per initial investigations, Ranjan spent his last few months probing the 2014 death of Shrikant Bharti, who was a close aide of BJP’s Siwan MP, Om Prakash Yadav, investigating the Shahabuddin’s role in the murder and published it in his newspaper reports.
Mohammad Shahabuddin, a former RJD parliamentarian, is a local strong man who is serving a life sentence in the murder of two brothers.
“Everyone is worried about Bihar degrading back to old days of jungle raaj,” said Sushil K Modi, chief of BJP’s Bihar unit.
Lashing out at Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, BJP Spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said, “It has never been this bad in Bihar, this is not ‘jungle raj’, this is ‘maha jungle raj’.”
“The case has an uncanny resemblance to Bharti’s murder in November 2014. The place and site of Bharti and Rajdeo’s murder have great similarity—crowd cover used to make getaways,” Saran deputy inspector general of police Ajit Rai told Hindustan Times.
Police also hinted at the murder being a “politically aided killing” as both the murders have been attempted in professionalism and finesse.
“It seems from a scan of his writings that he had written extensively on the ex-MP and the activities of his aides. Maximum reports are on them and he had earned bylines on each. We are looking at a possible connection to the crime,” police said.
The senior journalist, Siwan bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan, was allegedly shot dead when he was travelling to the market on Station Road at around 7:45 pm on Friday.
Radhkrishna Choudhary, Ranjan’s father and a small farmer, has demanded a CBI inquiry into his son’s death.
Two bullets were fired at Ranjan that hit on his neck and head. Four suspects have been detained in connection with his killing so far.
