Sitapur scribe’s murder: 22 days later, police still clueless

Even 22 days after Sitapur journalist Raghvendra Bajpai was shot dead in broad daylight, police investigators have failed to get any breakthrough in the case.

“The real cause for the murder, as well as the identities of people involved in executing the crime, could not be ascertained so far even after scanning over several thousand active phone numbers that were present near the spot at the time of the incident and dozens of video footage of suspicious persons present near the victim’s house and in the adjoining vicinity,” said a senior police official privy to the investigation.

Bajpai, 36, was murdered on the Lucknow-Delhi highway under Imaliya Sultanpur police station limits of Sitapur on March 8.

Sitapur superintendent of police (SP) Chakresh Mishra said police have investigated multiple angles but failed to ascertain the exact motive behind the murder so far. He said further investigation was on and the culprits would soon be arrested hopefully.

Another police investigator said multiple possible reasons were surfacing behind the murder but the ‘missing’ link between the conspirator, the executor and the motive was puzzling police. “The first possible reason was the journalist’s professional enmity with a group of lekhpals and people involved in land dealing. The journalist’s enmity with a brick kiln owner as well as his neighbour, a retired army man, was also ruled out. Also, the mysterious confession of a local priest, aged 30 years, about hatching the murder conspiracy could not help cops to reach any conclusion in the case,” he said, explaining the three angles that were probed so far.

He said while the priest confessed that he planned the journalist’s murder, cops failed to ascertain how he got executed the plan, who the executors were and when and how he met the killers. He said the missing dots in the story forced cops to rule out the theory.

“We have now changed the angle of our investigation—our focus is now on tracing the executors rather than searching for the motive and the conspirator. Sketches and video footage of some suspects spotted around the journalist’s house and behind his motorcycle when he was targeted near a busy bridge while moving from his house to Maholi tehsil have been released,” an additional superintendent of police-rank official said and added, “Police have even zeroed-in on a suspect, who hails from Sitapur but is missing since the incident. He is our prime suspect at present, but nothing can be confirmed until he is taken into custody and interrogated.”

Notably, UP Special Task Force (STF) was roped in to crack the case after Press Council of India sought a report from UP director general of police, and Sitapur’s district magistrate and SP regarding the actions taken in the case.