Namdhari is key conspirator, Delhi Police tells court

Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, the sacked Uttarakhand Minority Commission chairman, was on Saturday accused by Delhi Police of being the main conspirator in the November 17 shootout case that killed liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his brother Hardeep. Police told a magisterial court Namdhari had confessed to having shot Hardeep Chadha in the Chattarpur farmhouse in South Delhi with his pistol when Hardeep pointed his gun at him.

When the defence counsel contested the police theory, Metropolitan Magistrate Sandeep Garg sent Namdhari to five days’ police custody saying “the investigating agencies should be given an opportunity for their endeavour to recover the weapon used in the crime.” “In view of the same, the accused is remanded in police custody for five days till November 28,” the judge said.

 

Police also accused Namdhari of being involved in vandalising the farmhouse, besides committing loot, robbery and attempt to murder. The investigating agency said Namdhari is the main culprit and he, in his FIR earlier, had not disclosed about the firing and had also hidden his gun.

While coming out of the court premises, Namdhari told mediapersons he did not fire at Hardeep. “I don’t want to talk more on this case. I just want to say that it was just an accident and the FIR was lodged by me in this case. I called police myself,” said Namdhari. “It is wrong to say that I fired. It is a matter of investigation,” he added.

While seeking his custody, the police told the court that Namdhari is Ponty Chadha's front man. “Many other persons are also involved in this case and there is a deep-rooted conspiracy in the present crime. In this case, persons having assets of over Rs 1,000 crore is likely to be involved, in this conspiracy,” Public Prosecutor Manoj Choudhary said.

“Custodial interrogation at length is required to unearth the entire conspiracy in the crime,” he said. The police told the court that they had to trace out his accomplices who had accompanied him to the crime spot but “vanished later.”

“Other associates also, who are hiding in Uttarakhand or Uttar Pradesh, are to be arrested,” the prosecutor said.

It also told the court that one of the accused arrested earlier too has disclosed Namdhari's involvement in the shootout. Namdhari, who was with liquor baron Ponty Chadha at the time of his killing, was produced in court on Saturday after his arrest yesterday by a Delhi Police team from his residence at Bajpur in Udhamsinghnagar district of Uttarakhand. Ponty Chadha and Hardeep, who had a ongoing property dispute, were killed when both sides opened fire at each other last Saturday at their family farmhouse here.

While seeking Namdhari's custody, the police told the court that 26 criminal cases have been lodged against him in Uttarakhand between 1993 and 2009 and that eight of them are murder cases.

Opposing police plea for remand Namdhari’s counsel R S Malik said the accused himself lodged the FIR in the present case and had also rushed Ponty Chadha to the hospital, where he was declared “brought dead.”

Malik vehemently opposed police accusation against Namdhari saying his client was illegally arrested. “How can he be a conspirator, considering that the other FIR lodged in the case by Hardeep’s driver Nand Lal does not show his involvement?” he asked?

He said Namdhari was only accompanying Ponty Chadha to his farmhouse, where his brother had opened fire at him and the slain the liquor baron, and his PSOs had fired back in self defence. Earlier, the liquor baron’s four guards —Bhupender, Rajpal, Uday and Anand — were remanded in police custody till November 25 for allegedly entering the disputed farmhouse and thrashing Hardeep's men there. It has also arrested Mathura Singh Mehra, a 30-year-old servant of Ponty's family, in connection with the Chattarpur farmhouse trespass case. Two others, Vijay Kumar and Madan Rana, caretakers at Chadhas' another farmhouse in Bijwasan, were arrested on November 18 for allegedly restraining the farmhouse occupants and threatening them.