Police take Namdhari to U'khand to trace weapon

Cops await ballistic report to ascertain firearms used

 Three days after the arrest of sacked Uttarakhand minorities commission chairman Sukhdev Singh Namdhari for his involvement in a gunfight between liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his younger brother Hardeep Chadha in south Delhi, investigators took him to his home town to recover the weapon from which he is suspected to have fired during the fatal confrontation. Both the brothers were killed in the shoot-out.

The crime branch team took Namdhari to his home in Bajpur in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district. Namdhari was arrested on Friday from his home in Bajpur. He was present at the farmhouse in Chhattarpur where Chadha brothers were killed on November 17.

During interrogation, he told police that he had brought some musclemen from his home town and Uttar Pradesh to forcibly take possession of two farmhouses — 42, central drive in Chattarpur and C-98 in Bijwasan – along with Ponty Chadha. Investigators revealed that six people were present and at least 25 rounds were fired during the gunfight.

Ponty Chadha was with four persons — Namdhari and his personal security officer Sachin Tyagi,  Ponty’s private security officer Narendra Alawat, who received a bullet injury in his thigh, and his driver Raj Dev. Hardeep came alone in his car.
Investigators are awaiting the ballistic report to ascertain the firearms used in the shoot-out.

Custody extended

The police custody of five men of Ponty Chadha, arrested for allegedly entering a disputed farmhouse in south Delhi and thrashing some people there, has been extended by three more days by a Delhi court, reports PTI.

Metropolitan magistrate Sudhanshu Kaushik extended the police custody of Bhupender Singh, Uday Raj Singh, Rajpal Singh, Anand Singh Bisht and Mathura Singh Mehra till November 28 on police plea that the accused have to be confronted with Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, who is also in police custody for his alleged role in the November 17 shoot-out.

They were produced in the court by the Delhi Police Crime Branch after expiry of their remand.