GHAZIABAD: Months after former MLA from Sahibabad, Amarpal Sharma, surrendered in court and was chargesheeted in the murder of BJP worker Gajendra Bhati , a criminal who was arrested on Sunday claimed that it was indeed he who shot Gajendra dead.Gajendra was gunned down by two bike-borne men in Khoda in September last year in the run-up to the urban local body elections.Amar Singh, the 24-year-old sharpshooter, who was arrested on Saturday in connection with another murder case, is now claiming to have committed the murder of Gajendra as well.Earlier, the Ghaziabad police has chargesheeted Amarpal Sharma, the MLA’s former gunman Narendra Fauji and Fauji’s accomplice Raju Pehelwan for Gajendra’s murder.According to police sources, Amar Singh alias Moochh, a member of the dreaded Sundar Bhati gang of western UP, confessed to Gajendra’s murder during interrogation following his arrest along with four other accomplices on Saturday night.Police sources said Amar Singh has revealed that he had shot dead Gajendra Bhati at the behest of one Anil Bhati of Noida. Anil Bhati, a nephew of Sundar Bhati, and an accused in the murder case of BJP leader Shiv Kumar Yadav in Noida last year, was arrested in Shamli in March.“During questioning, Amar Singh revealed that Gajendra and Anil were allegedly involved in an organised extortion racket of MCD toll employees on NH-24 at Ghazipur near the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. Anil Bhati had allegedly asked Amar Singh to eliminate Gajendra Bhati after falling out with him over his share of extortion money. We are investigating the claims,” a senior police officer told TOI.Investigations conducted so far into the murder of Gajendra Bhati have concluded that he had been eliminated in a case of political rivalry by former MLA Amarpal Sharma. A few days after the murder, police had arrested Narendra Fauji, a former gunman of Amarpal Sharma. Fauji had confessed that he had eliminated Gajendra Bhati at the behest of Sharma who had promised to pay him Rs 10 lakh for the act.In the urban local body elections that were held in December, Gajendra Bhati’s widow Reena was elected chairperson of Khoda municipality after she trounced Amarpal Sharma’s wife Mohini who had contested as an Independent.In the chargesheet filed in Gajendra Bhati’s murder case, the three accused, including Sharma, have been charged under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC. Subsequently, police also added the Gangsters Act against Sharma in the FIR.Sharma who has already been granted bail by the Allahabad high court is, however, yet to walk free after the district administration invoked the National Security Act against him in February 2018. The high court had given bail to Sharma on all three counts of the IPC on April 24.“Subsequently, the court has also granted him bail on the Gangsters Act on July 3. We have all along maintained that he had been framed by his political rivals. It was a deliberate ploy to clip his wings so that his clout as a popular leader doesn’t come in the way of the political ambitions of his rivals in Ghaziabad,” Rahul Sharma, an aide of the former MLA told TOI.

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