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Wednesday, Jul 05, 2006

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National

Five held in NRI murder case

Special Correspondent

All are members of a parivar and have "confessed" to their crime

AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad police on Tuesday arrested five persons allegedly involved in the murder of a non-resident Indian and Swadhyaya Parivar activist Pankaj Trivedi.

Joint Police Commissioner P.K. Jha said the accused were members of the Parivar and had "confessed" to their crime.

Clubbed to death

Trivedi was clubbed to death outside the Ellisbridge Gymkhana Club here on the evening of June 15. Some of the accused, who had also reportedly made statements to the media, allegedly said they killed Trivedi because he was "damaging India's Vedic culture and the Swadhyaya Parivar."

Trivedi lived in the United States and was an active member of the Parivar group there. He came here on a business visit when he was murdered.

The police said that some "top brass" of the Parivar were in contact with one of the accused, Chandrasinh Jadeja, and used to visit his house at Paddhari in Rajkot district.

Chandrasinh Jadeja allegedly confessed to the crime and also named his accomplices as Mansinh Vadher, also of Rajkot, Bhupatsinh Jadeja of Jamnagar and Hitesh Chudasma and Dakshesh Shah, both of Ahmedabad. All four were later picked up by the police.

Chandrasinh Jadeja was initially questioned in connection with the assault on another Parivar activist, Vinu Sanchania, in Jamnagar three years ago.

Letter to Narendra Modi

The police suspected the Swadhyaya Parivar's involvement because of a letter written by Trivedi to Chief Minister Narendra Modi, saying he was being hunted by the Parivar because he was "exposing" the "shady deals" of the outfit's top brass. He also reportedly named about 30 top leaders, expressing apprehension about their "intention" to murder him.

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