A Rajasthan Anti-terrorism Squad team arrested a key accused in the 2011 Bhanwari Devi murder case in Madhya Pradesh, PTI reported on Saturday. Officials said Indra Bishnoi was arrested from a house near the Narmada river at Nemawar on Friday. The murder case had made headlines six year ago after reports had alleged that former Rajasthan minister Mahipal Maderna was involved in it.
Bishnoi had a Rs five lakh reward on her head over allegations that she had conspired with her brother and former Congress legislator Malkhan Singh Bishnoi. “A Rajasthan police team with the help of the Madhya Pradesh police arrested Indra Bishnoi from Nemawar area last night,” Additional Superintendent of Police (Dewas) Anil Patidar told PTI.
Devi was a trained midwife and nurse who had disappeared after a CD surfaced that allegedly showed Maderna in “a compromising position” with her. The 36-year-old nurse was reportedly abducted from Jodhpur’s Bilara area on September 1, 2011, and later murdered. The Central Bureau of Investigation found the burnt remains of her body in a canal four months after her murder.
As many as 17 people, including Maderna and Malkhan Singh Bishnoi, have been named in the three chargesheets filed by the CBI. While 15 of the accused were in judicial custody, one manage to secure bail and Indra Bishnoi was absconding until now. Maderna was arrested on December 2, 2011, PTI reported.
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