The Why Of A Murder

Late into the week, three more suspects were arrested, including Keshav Chauhan, an SP worker from Mirzapur, her constituency. The other two were Praveen Mittal, an advocate, and Amit Rathi, who allegedly provided the arms to Rana. But ten days after the killing, a key question still remains unanswered—what was the motive?

It seems like Sher Singh Rana, the prime accused, purposely left behind several clues to "lure" the police towards a certain line of investigation. Rana's green Maruti car was abandoned half-a-kilometre away from Phoolan's Ashoka Road residence; the assailants left two country-made revolvers at the spot while two other pistols were recovered from the car; Rana virtually gave himself up to the Dehradun police on July 27 and claimed to have committed the murder to avenge the Behmai killings.