Murder of Jamnagar lawyer was plotted in Dubai, say cops

AHMEDABAD/RAJKOT: Ahmedabad crime branch on Monday arrested two persons from Mumbai for allegedly conspiring to have Kirit Joshi, a prominent lawyer in Jamnagar, murdered on April 28.
Joshi was stabbed to death by two persons on the evening of April 28, outside his office on Town Hall Road in Jamnagar. He was attacked in full public view by the motorcycle-borne assailants, who stabbed him repeatedly as soon as he came out of his office. Crime branch sleuths nabbed Simon Louis Devendan (42), resident of Vasai (East) and Ajay Mohanprakash Mehta (38), a resident of Andheri (West). Joint commissioner of police, J D Bhatt, said the duo had helped the mastermind, Jayesh Ranpariya (Patel), contact the contract killers from Mumbai. "Around five accused, including Ranpariya, are still absconding."

Ranpariya had fled to Dubai eight days before the crime on a fake passport and plotted Joshi's murder from there. Joshi was fighting several cases of land-grabbing lodged against Ranpariya and had exposed a Rs 100-crore land scam, which had angered the latter. This was the prime reason for Ranpariya to eliminate Joshi.

"Ranpariya was arrested at Mumbai airport with a fake passport last November. He had got the fake passport made in Mumbai after his original was seized by Jamnagar police in one of the 27 offences against him. Most of the offences registered against him pertain to illegal land-grabbing. However, he got this fake passport released through a court order in Mumbai and fled to Dubai on April 20. Mumbai police have now appealed against this court order," said Bhatt.

Ranpariya was in constant touch with Mehta, a real estate broker, and asked him to contact some professional killers to eliminate Joshi. He also agreed to pay them Rs 50 lakh. "Besides Jamnagar, Ranpariya also operates in Mumbai where he has a driver named Alfred. He is an alcoholic and is related to Simon, who in turn got them in touch with the contract killers. The two attackers are still at large," said Deepan Bhadran, deputy commissioner of police, crime branch. The money trail that crime branch tracked showed that the killers were given Rs 90,000 as advance .