3 revenue officials among 12 held for scribe murder

LUCKNOW: Three revenue officials were among 12 people detained in UP’s Sitapur on Sunday for interrogation about the daylight murder of 36-year-old journalist and

RTI activist

Raghvendra Bajpai, whose reports on alleged irregularities in paddy procurement and stamp duty are suspected to be among the possible reasons he was targeted.
Sitapur SP Chakresh Mishra told TOI that six teams were probing the case, based on an FIR registered on Saturday against the unidentified motorcycle-borne assailants who shot dead Bajpai in the city, around 90km north of Lucknow.
The revenue officials — called “lekhpals” in parts of India — and the other nine people in detention were purportedly in contact with the victim over the past month.
“The motive remains unclear, which is why investigators are looking at the case from multiple angles, including Bajpai’s reportage in the Hindi newspaper for which he worked,” the SP said. “We aren’t ruling out personal enmity being the trigger for the murder.” Investigators are banking on data forensically gleaned from the victim’s mobile phone to provide clues crucial to cracking the case.

The FIR received by Maholi police station quotes Rashmi Bajpai, the slain journalist’s wife, as saying that he left home around 2.30pm on Saturday to “meet somebody”. An hour later, Rashmi was informed that her husband had been shot by unidentified assailants near the Hempur overbridge on Sitapur Road. He was declared dead on arrival at Sitapur District Hospital.
Rashmi told police that she suspected her husband’s reportage “angered certain individuals” and that he was “ambushed and killed”.
She wrote to CM Yogi Adityanath, demanding the strictest possible punishment to those involved in the crime. She also sought financial assistance of Rs 1 crore and a job from the state govt to provide for her 10-year-old son and her late husband’s parents.