Bhardwaj murder: Four accused in judicial custody till April 29

New Delhi: Four persons, including the two alleged shooters, accused in real estate tycoon Deepak Bhardwaj`s murder case, were on Monday remanded to two weeks judicial custody by a Delhi court.

Metropolitan Magistrate Prashant Sharma sent two alleged shooters Purushottam Rana and Sunil Mann, besides Amit and Pradeep to judicial custody after the Delhi Police`s Crime Branch moved an application for sending them to Tihar Jail. "All the accused are remanded to judicial custody till April 29," the court said. According to the police, Amit was the driver of the car in which shooters Rana and Mann had gone to the farm house of 62-year-old Bhardwaj, a local BSP leader, to kill him on March 26, and Pradeep had allegedly supplied them the arms. The four accused were produced before the court after expiry of their three-day police custody. Bhardwaj`s younger son Nitesh and lawyer Baljeet Singh Shehrawat, arrested on April 9, will be produced in the court tomorrow after expiry of their six-day police custody. Another co-accused Rakesh, owner of the car used in the commission of the crime, is also in judicial custody till April 25. The police had earlier taken custody of the four accused saying Rana in his disclosure statement had said that he can get alleged godman Pratibhanand, who is still absconding, from Delhi, Mathura and Haridwar. It had said Mann and Amit were part of the conspiracy and all the accused persons had to be confronted for unearthing the entire conspiracy. The police had said Rana and Mann had gone to meet Swami Pratibhanand before the crime and the conspiracy was hatched at Amit`s residence and they have to carry out raids at Solan in Himachal Pradesh and Rishikesh in Uttarakhand in order to arrest the godman. According to the sources, the police had also got issued non-bailable warrants against Pratibhanand. Mann and Rana were arrested on April 1 amid high drama when they had come to Patiala House court to surrender. While Rana was apprehended by the police just before he was to enter the premises, Mann had managed to evade the waiting police and had entered a court room but the judge refused to hear the matter and handed him over to Delhi Police Crime Branch officials, who were present there. Police has alleged that Nitesh, 31, had given a Rs five crore contract to Shehrawat, 51, who in turn had entrusted the job to Pratibhanand. It had said that while Nitesh wanted to avenge the insult heaped on him by his father by not allowing him to enter the farmhouse and making clear his intention not to give a proper share of property, the lawyer wanted funding for contesting elections. It said Nitesh was peeved at his father, the richest candidate in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections with declared assets of over Rs 600 crore, who lived separately after problems arose in the family some years ago. PTI