Civic engineers give Rs 20 lakh supari to kill senior, held

Shree Krishna Mohite, one of the junior engineers; Amit Sinha who was riding the bike at the time of shooting; RTI activist Raju Vishwakarma who helped civic engineers hire the supari contractors

Police have arrested two junior engineers of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) for giving a supari of R20 lakh to kill their superior. The duo was miffed, as they had not gotten promotion for many years, said Mumbai police chief.

Along with the civic employees - Yashwant Deshmukh and Shree Krishna Mohite, Thane and Mira Bhayandar police, in a joint operation, arrested contract killers - Amit Sinha and Ajay Singh, and RTI activists - Raju Vishwakarma and Pradeep Pathak. They were all arrested between October 3 and 5. Mohite and Deshmukh were junior engineers in the MBMC's Urban Development Department.

Target survives

Police said the duo had planned to get MBMC's Executive Engineer Deepak Khambit, 49, killed, hoping to get a promotion after he is gone. On September 29, the killers chased Khambit while he was driving home and Singh opened fire at his car around 6.10 pm near Omkareshwar temple, close to Sanjay Gandhi National Park. However, Khambit did not get shot, as bullets only shattered his vehicle's glass, causing minor injuries.

Police identified the duo from CCTV camera footage. The Mira Bhayandar Crime Branch, which was conducting a parallel probe in this case, arrested Sinha from Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh and handed him over to the Kasturba Marg police. Later, Singh was arrested from UP's Ghazipur district.

Police said the junior engineers met the killers through the RTI activists. Mohite knew Vishwakarma, as he helped him file RTI queries about the works of Khambit. He told him about the plan to kill Khambit, following which Vishwakarma introduced him to Sinha. Deshmukh and Mohite then hired Sinha and Singh to kill Khambit and paid an advance of Rs 10 lakh, said officers.

A police officer told mid-day that Vishwakarma knew Sinha and Singh from the time they were all in jail in different cases in the past. Police said Sinha has also worked for gangsters like Chhota Rajan and D K Rao.

Why were they miffed?

Mohite told police that they learnt that MBMC's senior engineer will retire in a few months, and thought that Khambit would replace him, while he and Deshmukh wouldn't get promotion. Mohite said they were angry about it, and hence planned to get Khambit killed, hoping he would take his place and Deshmukh would also get a good posting.

A police source told mid-day that the RTI activists and the killers were caught on a CCTV camera outside the MBMC office, where the former were seen identifying Khambit. "These men did a recce for a month before firing at Khambit."