Dahod: Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Gujarat Police today said the investigation in BJP councilor Hiren Patel murder case has revealed that Jhalod Congress MLA Bhavesh Katara’s brother and former Lok Sabha MP Babu Katara’s son Amit Katara had ordered Patel’s murder. Amit Katara’s wife Kinjal was the president of the first term from February 2018 to August 2020 of Jhalod municipality was Kinjal Amit Katara, daughter-in-law of former Dahod MP Babulal Katara, who switched from the BJP to the Congress, and sister-in-law of sitting Congress MLA from Jhalod, Bhavesh Katara.

Police teams were in search of accused responsible for Hiren Patel’s murder. One of teams received a lead that accused Imran Gudala was hiding in Mevat area of Haryana. Imran was nabbed with the help of Haryana Police. Imran has told police that Amit Katara had asked him to execute Hiren Patel following which he joined hand with Ajay Kalal and handed over the task of execution to Irfan Pada. Imran has said that he also showed house of Hiren Patel to Irfan.

Hiren Patel was hit by a moving vehicle when on morning walk on September 27.

Names of Imran Gudala, a resident of Jhalod and Irfan Basti, a resident of of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh — had cropped up during the interrogation of the arrested accused. Gudala, who is said to have facilitated the money for the contract killing reportedly have political links with elected representatives in Jhalod, while Basti was one of the hired contractors present on the day the accused allegedly rammed a Light Utility Vehicle (LUV) into Patel during his morning walk.

The four arrested accused so far are — 2002 Sabarmati train carnage convinct Irfan Pada, Jhalod resident Ajay Kalal, and Ujjain residents Sajjansinh Chauhan and Mohammed Samir Mujawar.

Three Congress councillors and one independent councillor had gone into hiding, three months before local polls. Of them Sonal Dindor became the president of the municipality unopposed in August this year. Dindor along with the two other party councillors rebelled and voted against the party mandate to support Nanda Vaghela to become the vice-president, who was backed by the BJP. This change in power in Jhalod affected some contract works which is believed the reason behind the murder.