Varanasi: The CBI team investigating the murder of West Bengal CM Shubhendu Adhikari’s PA, Chandrakanth Rath, succeeded in arresting the prime accused in the case from the Police Lines area in Varanasi on Tuesday evening. The team had been hunting for the key accused, Vinay Rai alias Pumpum of Ghazipur, since May 9.Investigators had earlier arrested Raj Singh and Rajkumar Singh of Ballia in the same case.After producing him before Chief Judicial Magistrate Manish Kumar’s court to seek transit remand and medical examination, the CBI team took him to Kolkata.Rai had come on the radar of the WB Police and also CBI when it took over the investigation of the Rath murder case.Since the start of the Rath murder investigation, officials had been tracing links to shooters from eastern Uttar Pradesh. Before Raj Singh was arrested in Ayodhya on May 10, a West Bengal police team had already reached Ghazipur in search of Rai, who has multiple criminal cases against him.On the night of May 10, the WB police team also raided the house of Rai’s friend in the Matsa area, but he was not found. The WB police collected details of Vinay Rai’s criminal history after contacting Ghazipur police.On Sunday night, another Ballia man, Rajkumar Singh, was arrested in connection with the murder of Rath, near a toll plaza in Muzaffarnagar’s Chhapar area. The accused was allegedly returning from Haridwar with his family when the joint team intercepted his vehicle.Earlier, police had arrested three persons in the case. Two accused, Mayank Raj Mishra and Vicky Maurya, were detained from Buxar in Bihar, while another accused, Raj Singh, was detained from Ballia.
