NIA arrests man from Uttar Pradesh in RSS leader killing case

The NIA has arrested a suspected arms supplier from Uttar Pradesh in connection with its probe into the killing of RSS leader Ravinder Gosain in Punjab's Ludhiana in October 2017.

An agency spokesperson said Parvez alias Farru, who had been on the run, was arrested last night from his house in Kotwali area in Meerut.

"Parvez was wanted in connection with supplying arms to Hardeep Singh alias Shera, one of the main accused in the cases related to targeted killings in Punjab in 2016-2017," the spokesperson said.


Parvez is eleventh person to be arrested by the agency during its probe.

He said Parvez was produced before a special court in Mohali, which sent him to one-day custody of the agency today.

The weapons supplied by Parvez, he said, were "used" in several of the eight incidents committed as part of an international conspiracy with an objective to de-stabilise the law and order situation in Punjab and to revive militancy in the state.

In October last year, two unidentified people had killed Gosain, the chief of Raghunathnagar Shakha of the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Ludhiana, when he was sitting outside his house.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had then said that the state would hand over the probe into this case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The killing of the RSS leader was the latest in a series of murderous attacks on right-wing and religious leaders in Punjab.