Gandhinagar, July 6 (IANS) A Gujarat court on Tuesday acquitted all the four accused, including prime accused Chhabeel Patel, in the case of planned murder of Pawan More, the prime eyewitness in the high-profile murder of BJP leader Jayanti Bhanushali.
Gandhidham sessions court judge J.B. Parasaria acquitted Chhabeel Patel and three others in the police case registered against them for planning the murder of the prime witness Pawan More.
“The prosecution could not establish the charges levelled against Patel and three other accused for planning the murder of Pawan More and so the judge acquitted all of them today,” Dilip Joshi, the lawyer for Patel told IANS.
Pawan More was the sole co-passenger travelling in the railway compartment where BJP leader and ex-Abdasa MLA Jayanti Bhanushali was murdered. More is the prime eyewitness in the incident.
The Kutch police, based on cellphone conversations of Patel, had filed charges against Chhabeel Patel, Rasik Sahugan Patel, Piyush Devji Patel and Umesh Maganlal Patel for planning to murder Pawan More.
Bhanushali, 53, also a former vice president of the Gujarat BJP unit, was shot dead in a moving train – Bhuj-Dadar Express – near Samakhiyali station of Kutch district on January 8, 2019.
Earlier, the Gujarat police CID had arrested former BJP leader Chhabeel Patel who, according to the probe agency, allegedly played a key role in eliminating his political rival Bhanushali.
Patel and one Manisha Goswami had allegedly hired sharpshooters to execute the crime with the help of three other accused.
Both Bhanushali and Chhabeel Patel were former MLAs from Kutch district’s Abdasa constituency.
Bhanushali represented the seat from 2007 to 2012. Patel, a Congress candidate then, defeated him in the 2012 Gujarat Assembly polls.
Within two years, Patel switched sides and joined the BJP, but lost the bypoll to the seat in 2014. In 2017, the BJP chose him over Bhanushali to contest from the Abdasa seat, but he again lost the polls.
According to the FIR registered with the Railway police, Patel allegedly held Bhanushali responsible for his poll defeats in 2014 and 2017 and held a grudge against him, which led to the murder.
–IANS
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