Varanasi: Ballia native Raj Singh, arrested for the murder of West Bengal CM Shubhendu Adhikari’s aide, Chandrakant Rath, was jailed in 2020 for the murder of a disabled egg seller, Ajeet Gupta. He was currently out on bail.The forensic science lab report confirmed that the bullet extracted from Ajeet Gupta’s body was fired from the same pistol recovered from Raj when he was arrested two days after killing him, Ballia district govt counsel (criminal) Sanjeev Singh told TOI. Raj and his two aides, Govinda Singh and Pankaj Sharma, were arrested for Gupta’s murder.The case is under trial in a Ballia court and the police have submitted the chargesheet, postmortem report, forensic lab report on the pistol recovered from Raj’s possession and the bullet extracted from Gupta’s body, said Singh. The next hearing in the case is on May 19, and the court has summoned all witnesses. Singh said the trial is in the final stage.Ballia police officials, though, are reluctant to provide details of Raj’s criminal history. “The criminal record of Raj Singh has been sought. So far it came to light that following the egg seller’s killing in 2020, he was caught with a pistol,” Ballia SP Omvir Singh told TOI.On his Facebook profile, Raj posted some photographs with politicians.Ajeet’s father, Paras Gupta, who is waiting for justice, said his eldest son was the sole bread earner of the family despite being physically challenged. Ajeet only asked Raj to clear dues of Rs 50 for the eggs consumed by him, and that prompted the murder, recalled Paras. “On Oct 13, 2020, night, Ajeet was heading to his shop on his tricycle when Raj and his accomplices shot him dead. We lodged an FIR against Raj, Govinda and Pankaj on the same night, and two days after the incident police arrested the trio,” said Paras.The district court denied them bail, but they approached the high court, which gave them bail. After coming out of jail, Raj, a resident of Anand Nagar in Ballia city, started getting closer to some influential politicians, especially from Ballia.Paras said that now his younger son runs an egg stall to feed the family and also arrange the expenses for the court. He wants capital punishment for the three accused.
