After dramatic turns of events and alleged police inaction in the six days since a contentious daytime shooting death in Bihar, controversial BJP legislator Ashok Agrawal was arrested and sent to a 14-day judicial custody on Monday. The BJP then suspended him from the party.
Agrawal, accused of shooting one of his employees dead in Katihar on July 17, was produced in the court of Katihar chief judicial magistrate R.N. Tripathy after his arrest from his residence on Sunday night. An FIR was lodged against him under Section 302 of the IPC for the death of Dheeraj Mahto, 30, who worked at the MLC’s petrol pump. Agrawal’s bail application is likely to come up for hearing on August 4, said the police. While Agrawal has strongly denied that he shot Mahto and claimed the shots were actually “accidentally misfired” when his bodyguard was cleaning up his weapon, the dead man’s brother, Neeraj Mahto, has claimed he saw the MLC angrily snatching the carbine from his bodyguard and shooting Mahto dead after a heated argument.
“We have suspended him (Agrawal) from the party. There was no question of he ever being given any protection by the party or the government. The police are doing their duty,” said Bihar BJP president C.P. Thakur.
Katihar SP Kim said, “We arrested the accused after a preliminary probe and receiving the FSL report, whose version is completely different from the theory given to the police so far. Our investigations are in progress”. Sources said the FSL report found the shots that hit Dheeraj Mahto’s head were fired from point-blank range and appeared deliberate.