The Delhi Police on Sunday arrested another suspect in connection with the recent attack on Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, the officials told news agency ANI. This is the second arrest made in the case so far.
The arrested accused, identified as Tahseen Syed, is alleged to have transferred money to the prime accused, Rajesh Khimji, who carried out the attack on the Delhi Chief Minister.
Tahseen Syed was brought to Delhi from Rajkot in Gujarat on Friday for further questioning.
Who is Tahseen Syed?
The Delhi police revealed that Tahseen Syed is an auto driver who is a resident of Rajkot, Gujarat.
Syed, a friend of the prime accused Rajesh Khimji, had allegedly transferred money to him, the Delhi police said in a statement.
Khimji had allegedly sent a video of Rekha Gupta's Shalimar Bagh residence to Syed, while the latter sent him ₹2,000 and was in constant contact with him before the attack on the chief minister took place on Wednesday, a news report by NDTV said.
Attack on Rekha Gupta
On 20 August, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta was assaulted by a Rajkot resident, Rajesh Khimji, at her Civil Lines residence during a ‘Jan Sunwai’ programme. He allegedly ‘slapped' Gupta and ‘pulled her hair' before security stepped in, said a news report by Hindustan Times.
Rajesh Khimji was arrested and sent to five-day police custody. The investigation is ongoing.
Delhi police intensifies probe using dump data
Meanwhile, Delhi Police have intensified their probe into the attack on the CM, with investigators now seeking dump data from Rekha Gupta's personal and official residences.
According to sources cited by ANI, dump data, which provides details of mobile tower locations, device signals and call records of all numbers active in a particular area, is being retrieved from telecom service providers for specific time windows.
The move aims to track accused Rajesh Khimji's movements before and during the incident.
Investigators are analysing whether Rajesh Khimji was present alone in the area where the incident took place or if other suspicious devices and individuals were also active at the same time.
Efforts to reconstruct incident
Police officials believe that the data will help in reconstructing the sequence of events leading up to the attack and in establishing whether the accused had any external support or carried out the assault independently.
The officials are examining all electronic surveillance, including CCTV cameras around both the CM's residences, as part of the probe, ANI reported.
Police teams are additionally verifying security logs, visitor entries and deployment records to identify possible lapses, while interrogation inputs from Rajesh Khimji are being cross-checked with technical evidence, the news report said.
