Ranchi, March 8
The AJSU Party has called for a statewide bandh on Sunday after its Chatra Lok Sabha constituency incharge Tileshwar Sahu was shot dead by two suspected members of the left wing extremist outfit PLFI in Hazaribagh district on Saturday afternoon.
Police are looking into whether the murder is linked to the death of Sahu's father Gajendra, allegedly killed by members of an LWE organisation in April 2008.
Police are monitoring Hazaribagh, where the murder took place and Gumla, where Sahu mostly lived. "Law and order remains under control. It is too early to consider imposing Section 144, etc. People have blocked the road as of now," said DGP Rajeev Kumar.
Sahu, whom party sources say was likely to be declared AJSU's candidate either from the Chatra seat this time or Barhi assembly constituency in the elections scheduled in 2015, was shot twice in Hazaribagh's Barhi by two men on a bike on his way home from a meeting to mark International Women's Day, where he was chief guest.
An, individual named Suraj Kumar who hails from Gumla district, where Sahu too is from, was chased and captured by AJSU workers and policemen. He been arrested and a pistol was recovered. "He has confessed to the murder. There was another youngster with him. We think he is from the PLFI," said Hazaribagh SP Manoj Kaushik. However, police are yet to believe Suraj's claims as his statements have been inconsistent.
The PLFI and Sahu have a history. In December 2013, a timer-fitted bomb was recovered in Simdega from a petrol pump owned by Sahu. "We later confirmed that it was a PLFI device. The same brand of timers were recovered when we raided a gun factory that the organisation used to operate," said Simdega SP Asim V. Minj.
Sahu, former chairperson of the state's Pollution Control Board, had in January complained to the Ranchi police that an LWE organisation had demanded an AK-47 and a carbine from him.
His father was gunned down in April 2008 within Kamdara police station of Gumla district. An FIR registered on the basis of a complaint by Sahu's mother had claimed then that then-minister Enos Ekka was behind the murder. "Ekka was later cleared, while six others mentioned in the FIR have been charge sheeted. They were all criminals; no single organisation was responsible," said Gumla SP Bhimsen Tuti.
Sahu, a prominent leader of the OBC Teli caste, was widely perceived as the rock on which Ekka built his empire in Simdega district's Kolebira. They had a falling out later, after which Ekka was instrumental in the arrest of Sahu in a case relating to the murder of six people in Simdega. They were killed by Shanti Sena in 2006, created by Sahu and claiming to an anti-Maoist force.
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