Plot to kill Tejpal foiled

By Prashant Pandey

NEW DELHI, MAY 6. An ISI-backed plan to eliminate the Chief Executive of Tehelka.com, Mr. Tarun Tejpal, and editor investigation of the site, Mr. Aniruddha Bahal, has been foiled, the Special Cell of Delhi police claimed today.

Six persons, including gangsters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, have been arrested and a large quantity of arms and ammunitions recovered from them.

The Special Cell had received intelligence inputs from the Central agencies about an ISI plan to create disturbances by targeting the Tehelka chief, whose tapes had exposed corruption in defence deals.

``They targetted Tarun Tejpal as that would have brought discredit to the Government and even led to its collapse, which, in turn, could have led to further internal disturbances,'' the Special Commissioner of Police (Intelligence), Mr. S. Ramakrishnan, told reporters here.

The accused were arrested when the Tata Safari they were travelling in was intercepted by a Special Cell team near Mukarba Chowk at Jahangirpuri in North-West Delhi at about 4-30 p.m. on May 5. They were coming from Nepal.

The accused have been identified as Bhupinder Tyagi, Raj Kumar, Dinesh Tyagi, Rakesh, Anil and Ombir. While Bhupinder and Dinesh Tyagi are residents of U.P., Raj Kumar, Rakesh and Ombir belong to Delhi.

In all, police recovered two AK-47 rifles, 191 rounds of 7.2 calibre, two .30 Chinese pistols and nine live cartridges and a bullet-proof jacket from the accused.

A layout plan of the office and residence of the Tehelka chief besides photographs of Mr. Tejpal and Mr. Bahal were also recovered from them. Fake Indian currency worth Rs. 25,000, all in the denominations of Rs. 500 were also seized.

Police said investigations into the inputs revealed that a person named ``Modi'', who had his base on the Indo-Nepal border, had been liasioning with some Delhi criminals and acquiring arms and ammunition to carry out the task.

Modi was found to be in touch with one Raj Kumar of Bawana, whose other associates were Rakesh, Anil and Ombir. After the arrest, Bhupinder was found to be in possession of a driving licence in the name of Kamalkant Modi, which contained his picture. The licence was procured from Mathura. Bhupinder is a mafia element based on the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar.

Bhupinder, police said, had come in contact with an ISI official, codenamed ``Jain'', in January 2001 while he was with a Nepalese mafia leader whom he had earlier met in Bihar. Jain had asked him to carry out ``some spectacular'' action.

However, Bhupinder agreed but the target was not finalised. Finally, in April 2001, after the Tehelka.com expose grabbed the headlines, Mr. Tejpal was finalised as the target. Bhupinder was to get Rs. 10 lakhs for the job. He was also given a huge cache of arms and ammunition, including 10 AK-47 rifles.

Bhupinder's hit team included Naresh Yadav, Subhash Pandey, Vinod Pandey, Ramesh Rai alias Sahi and Hare Ram Singh -all of whom are at present hiding at Beerganj, Nepal.

They were to come to Delhi in two stolen vehicles after getting confirmation from the team that was apprehended.

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