Seven, including the temple’s chief monk and a village chief, have been arrested.
Lucknow:
A conspiracy by a temple priest and others in the Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh was arrested by police on Saturday, saying the defendant hired a professional shooter and orchestrated an attack on himself to frame a political rival. Seven people, including the temple’s main monk and a village chief, have been arrested for the attack on the priest, who will also be arrested once he leaves the hospital, police said.
Priest Atul Tripathi alias Samrat Das, who was wounded in the attack last week, is currently at King George Medical College Hospital in Lucknow, they said.
Police claimed that the temple’s Mahant Sitaramdas, the village chief and the wounded priest had hatched the plan to carry out the attack.
The incident sparked a major dispute and the state government faced intense criticism. The Ayodhya Saints had also camped in the district and demanded immediate action against those responsible.
At a joint press conference, District Magistrate Nitin Bansal and Police Superintendent Shailesh Kumar Pandey said that Mr. Das was injured when he was shot on the night of October 10 at the Shri Ram Janki temple in the village.
The attack took place last week.
Mahant Sitaramdas of the temple brought an attempted murder case against former village chief Amar Singh and his associates, two of whom were arrested the following day. Amar Singh was not found.
Five teams were formed to solve the case and based on electronic evidence, witness statements and other inputs, seven defendants were arrested on Friday and efforts were made to catch another person who is still on the run, the police chief said. from District.
Three locally made revolvers, seven active cartridges, an empty cartridge and a mobile phone were recovered from them, he said.
The police officer said that the Ram Janki temple in Tirre Manorama village had 120 bighas of earth over which there was a rivalry between former village chief Amar Singh and Mahant Sitaramdas.
There was also a political rivalry between Amar Singh and the current gram pradhan, Vinay Singh, Pandey said, adding that both Mahant Sitaramdas and Vinay Singh planned to frame Amar Singh in serious matter to serve their respective motives.
They planned to shoot the priest so that he would escape wounded and without threat of life, he said, adding that on the day of the attack all the defendants gathered in the temple and decided that three of them would carry out the plan.
With the consent of the priest, one of them shot him while Mahant Sitaramdas pretended to be asleep in his room, the police officer said.
The house guards who rushed to the temple upon hearing the shot saw three people escape in the torchlight, he added.
Police said the two people who were previously arrested based on the case brought by Mahant Sitaramdas will be released soon.
(With PTI inputs)
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