Two who attempted to kill Gopal Dairy chief arrested

Rajkot: Two persons accused of attempting to murder Govind Ranpariya, chairman of Rajkot District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (RDCMPUL), popularly known as Gopal Dairy, have been arrested in Junagadh with illegal firearm and cartridges.

Junagadh crime branch which effected the arrests have identified the accused as Govind Rabari (24) and Viram Rabari (30), both residents of Navagam, Anandpur, in Rajkot. The arrests were effected on Friday night when the crime branch officials while patrolling spotted them in a suspicious condition.

"The duo on their bike started to speed away after seeing us. Finding their movement suspicious, we chased and nabbed them. We found a countrymade pistol worth Rs 5,000 and two live cartridges from their possession. When asked, they could not produce a license to keep a firearm. During their interrogation, Govind said the pistol and cartridges belonged to his late father Bhaga Rabari from whom he had inherited them," a Junagadh crime branch official said.

The accused face several charges, including the attempt on the life of Ranpariya, whom they tried to run over by a tanker a month ago. Much before this incident, Ranpariya had already lodged a complaint against the duo for issuing a death threat to him. One-and-a-half years ago, the duo had threatened to kill Ranpariya's personal assistant Ramesh Sangani and two years ago they had gone on a rampage at the dairy, where they vandalized the premises, breaking the glass and threatening the security guard with death.

"Both the accused were angry with the dairy management, which had cancelled their contract of transportation. On September 28 they had tried to set ablaze a tanker carrying milk from the dairy and tried to kill its driver, the complaint of which had been registered with Rajkot taluka police station.