JD(U) candidate Anant Singh, his two aides sent to 14-day custody in murder case

A Patna court on Sunday (November 2) remanded JD(U) candidate from Mokama seat, Anant Singh, and his two associates to 14-day judicial custody in connection with the murder of Jan Suraaj Party supporter Dular Chand Yadav.

Singh, a former Bihar MLA, and his two aides, Manikant Thakur, and Ranjeet Ram, who were earlier arrested in connection with Yadav's murder, were produced before the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Patna. "The court sent Singh and the two others to judicial custody for two weeks," his lawyer Naveen Kumar told reporters. From the court, they were taken to Patna's Beur Jail.

Murder accusation

Singh had been under scrutiny since the death of Yadav, who clashed with the former MLA's supporters. He was picked up from his house in Barh, about 200 km from Patna.

Police later arrested him and two other persons in connection with the killing of Yadav on the intervening night between November 1 and November 2.

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Yadav was killed while he was campaigning for Jan Suraaj Party's candidate Piyush Priyadarshi in the Mokama area in Patna on October 30. His postmortem report revealed that he died of cardio-respiratory failure due to shock caused by injury to the heart and lungs by a hard and blunt substance.

FIR against JD(U) candidate

Along with the autopsy report, the preliminary investigation also suggested it was a case of murder, a senior police officer said. Investigations also revealed that all three were present at the time of the incident, he said.

A total of four FIRs, one pertaining to the violation of the model code of conduct, have been registered by the police, he said. Singh, a local strongman, has been named as an accused along with four others in one of the FIRs, registered based on a complaint lodged by the grandson of Yadav, a gangster-turned-politician who was named in several criminal cases.

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Singh, a former MLA, whose wife, Neelam Devi, currently represents the Mokama seat, has also been booked for model code of conduct violation, as instances of his movement in huge cavalcades have come to light.