Mastermind in Bhanwari Devi murder case held

The Rajasthan Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Saturday arrested Indira Bishnoi, the sister of former Congress MLA Malkhan Singh Bishnoi, in connection with the murder of Dalit midwife and nurse Bhanwari Devi. 

Indira, regarded as the mastermind in the 2011 murder, was arrested in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district, after being tracked for six long years. 

Confirming Indira's arrest, Jaipur Range Inspector General of Police Biju George told reporters that she was picked up from a house near the banks of river Narmada. 

"Four months ago, we received information from ATS Udaipur about her location. She was nabbed from a village near Narmada river, where she had been living since 2011,"George added. 

Indira, co accused in the controversial abduction and murder in September 2011, had a Rs 5 lakh bounty on her head. The CBI announced the bounty in 2012 after a local court in Jodhpur declared her an absconder in the case.

Her



brother Malkhan Singh and former minister in the Ashok Gehlot government Mahipal Singh Maderna were among the 17 people accused in the abduction and murder. 

The CBI has, so far, filed three chargesheets against the accused, including Maderna and Singh. Fifteen of them are in judicial custody, one was out on bail, while Indira was absconding. 

A trained midwife, Bhanwari Devi (36) went missing after some television channels aired a CD showing her and ex-minister Maderna in a compromising position. 

She was abducted from Jodhpur's Bilara area on September 1, 2011, and murdered. Her body was handed over to another gang who burnt and dumped it in a canal.

The CBI found the remains of her body four months later. The CBI probe revealed that Indira had taken the sleazy CD that went viral in the electronic media, causing a major embarrassment to the then Ashok Gehlot government. Maderna was arrested on December 2, 2011.