NIA seeks custody of accused in Gujarat BJP leaders' murder

Ahmedabad: The NIA has moved a special court here to seek three-day custody of three men accused in the 2015 murders of the BJP's local leaders, Shirish Bangali and Pragnesh Mistry, in Bharuch.

Principal Judge PB Desai has reserved his order on the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) plea and fixed April 13 for further hearing.

The lawyer for the NIA, which is probing the murders, told the court that the custody of Nasir Khan Pathan, Abdul Salim Ghanchi and Shoaib Zoaid was required for their interrogation to find out more details in the case.

The three, among 12 people arrested in the case, are in judicial custody and lodged in the Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad.

Bangali, a former Bharuch district BJP president, and Mistry, a general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's local unit, were shot dead in Bharuch in south Gujarat on November 2 last year.

The case was handed over to the NIA after Gujarat Police investigations found that the two could have been murdered to avenge the communal riots in Mumbai and Gujarat in 1993 and 2002 respectively.