Documents seized from Satish Shetty murder 'witnesses'

CBI officials claim that the two were the main eyewitnesses to Shetty's killing on January 13, 2010 near their residence in Talegaon Dabhade, but refuse to come forward with any information, as the assailants may have threatened or bought their silence.u00a0

A CBI officer, who participated in the operation, said, "The couple reside near Shetty's residence and have a small shop in front of their house. When the assailants assaulted Shetty on January 13, both were present at their stall. We suspect that they might have witnessed the killing, but are not coming forward to help CBI identifying the main assailants."

The officer added that the assailants may have threatened the couple and therefore they are not coming forward with information about the murder.

"We also suspect that the assailants may have given them allurements in the form of cash or land for not appearing as eyewitnesses in the murder case," said the CBI officer.

CBI officials were keeping a watch on the couple's house, following which a four-member team led by DSP (CBI) S P Singh swooped down at 7 am yesterday and initiated a search of the residence.

"As we were are suspecting that they might have been given allurements in the form of cash or land, we started our search by checking bank statements and other property related documents and seized various documents," the officer said.

SP (Pune CBI) Vidya Kulkarni said that it was a regular exercise and refused to divulge details of the search operation.

Last week, CBI sleuths raided Lonavla police station and seized a laptop and a hard disk of a computer as part of their investigation. A CBI official said that the bureau was very close to solving the case and would nail the assailants within three or four months. u00a0