By IANS,
Lucknow : The Uttar Pradesh Police Saturday continued its overnight searches in various areas of Lucknow and Faizabad to arrest Anand Sen Yadav, a former state minister, for his alleged involvement in a 2007 kidnapping and murder of a woman.
The police also detained a gunman provided to him by the state government and a servant for interrogation in the case.
Without disclosing their names, Faizabad Senior Superintendent of Police R.K.S. Rathore told reporters, “We are questioning them and hope to arrest Yadav soon.”
He said the police had also asked his septuagenarian father Mitra Sen Yadav, a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member of parliament from Faizabad, to help in arrest of Anand Sen, a BSP legislator from Milkipur assembly constituency in the same district.
“Besides Yadav’s residence and possible whereabouts in Faizabad, searches were conducted in the Hazratganj, Indira Nagar and Gomti Nagar localities of Lucknow,” Rathore said.
Yadav, 45, had to resign as minister of state for food processing in November 2007 for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Shashi, a Dalit girl from Faizabad.
The 24-year-old girl was a third year law student in Faizabad when she went missing Oct 22 last. Though her body is yet to be found, the police suspected she was murdered after recovery of her wrist watch, which was found from the Gomti river in Sultanpur. Her parents had confirmed that the watch belonged to her.
In a first information report (FIR), Shashi’s father Yogendra Prasad accused Yadav’s distant relative and driver Vijay Sen of the crime. One Seema Azad, a classmate of Shashi and believed to be close to Yadav, was named as the other accused.
Anand Sen’s name figured as a suspect in the chargesheet filed in the court by the police on the basis of narco analysis tests of Vijay Sen.
Yadav also filed a writ petition through his counsel in the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court Friday seeking a stay on his arrest. The plea was however turned down and the next hearing was fixed for June 24.