New Delhi: Police in Chhattisgarh's Kabirdham district arrested four people after the body of a missing RTI activist was found in a forest.
The sarpanch of a gram panchayat and his three associates are facing investigation over alleged murder of Vivek Chaubey whose skeletal remains were found in the forest near Kundapani.
The RTI activist who was also a local scribe went missing on November 12 and his family reported to the police with a missing complaint on November 16, according to India Today.
After 41 days of vain search for the activist, police received a tip off that led to recovering the fully burnt skeletal remains.
A forensic examination confirmed that the skeletal remains were of Vivek Chaubey, Kabirdham district Superintendent of Police Lal Umed Singh told news agency PTI.
Police followed inputs about Chaubeys’ phone location that was traced to Kundapani village to where he was seen going to meet sarpanch Amit Yadav.
Sarpanch and his three associates confessed to committing the murder and were arrested on Friday, police officer said.
Superintendent of Police Lal Umed Singh reportedly said that the accused sarpanch confessed that Chaubey was with him on the night of November 12. The accused repotedly said that an argument had broken out between them over a financial dispute and sarpach hit the activist with a stick after he hurled abuse at Sarpanch’s wife.
Singh said the four accused carried the body into the jungle and burnt it with wood alongside destroying and burying the victim’s motorcycle in the forest.