Ahmedabad

A special court here today remanded three men, arrested in connection with the murder of two BJP leaders in Bharuch last month, in the custody of National Investigation Agency (NIA) till January 1.

The central agency had demanded ten-day custody of Mohammad Altaf, Mohsin Khan and Nisar Ahmed, but the judge P B Desai granted it their custody till January 1.

The prosecution said that NIA needed to recover the bike used in the crime and to investigate the role of Mohammad Altaf who was believed to be one of the key conspirators.

Altaf’s remand was necessary to find out the larger conspiracy and to find out his international connections, it said.

The defence lawyers opposed the application citing Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) which has been invoked against the accused. Under the Act, a remand can be granted only if the accused are produced within 30 days of arrest, while in this case 30 days had passed, the lawyers said. These accused had been arrested in early November.

On December 22, the court had remanded four others — Inayat Haji Patel, Mohammad Yunus Shaikh, Abdul Samad and Abid Patel — in NIA’s custody till December 29.

Former president of BJP’s Bharuch district unit and senior RSS member Shirish Bangali and general secretary of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha for the district Pragnesh Mistry were shot dead in Bharuch on November 2.

The probe was initially conducted by local police and Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad.

According to the investigators, Javed Chikna, a fugitive gangster, had given the contract for killing the two leaders to take revenge for 1993 Mumbai riots and 2002 Gujarat riots.

The case was handed over to NIA earlier this month on the state government’s request.