NEW DELHI, 23 September 2003 — A former minister in India’s largest state has been arrested over allegations he arranged the killing of a local poet with whom he had had an extra-marital affair after she became pregnant with his child.
Amarmani Tripathi was arrested by federal investigators late on Sunday in Lucknow, the capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
He has been charged with murder, conspiracy, tampering with evidence and fabricating false evidence, officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation said.
Immediately after his arrest, Tripathi complained of chest pain and was taken to a hospital. Tripathi, a diabetic with high blood pressure, is in stable condition at the city’s King George’s Medical College Hospital, according to his doctor, R. B. Singh.
Tripathi, a former minister of land registration, was sacked from the state government in May amid allegations that he was intimately involved with Madhumita Shukla, a 24-year-old poet who was shot and killed on May 9 in her home in Lucknow. A post-mortem found that she had been seven months pregnant.
Tripathi says he has nothing to do with the murder and had met Shukla only twice. He has blamed his arrest on a political witch hunt against him.
Tripathi was arrested after a government forensic laboratory confirmed that the DNA of the fetus matched his and one of the suspected killers told investigators that the former minister was behind Shukla’s death, The Times of India reported.
The case was handed to the federal investigators after the state’s Criminal Investigation Department failed to complete its investigation within a month.
Shukla’s servant Deshraj told reporters that the poet had close links with Tripathi and had several times spent the night at his residence.
Tripathi is charged in more than three dozen other criminal cases, including murder, ransom and kidnapping. He denies the charges.
The new state chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, expressed his support for Tripathi and said Tripathi’s arrest would not change his party’s relationship with the accused lawmaker.
“Tripathi helped save Uttar Pradesh. That is why he is of importance to the state and the country. He helped us change. That is why irrespective of whether the CBI or the courts take any action against him, the Samajwadi Party will not take any action against him,” Yadav told reporters in New Delhi.
The CBI has not ruled out the arrest of other members of Tripathi’s family in connection with the murder. “The CBI is a big agency but we will fight a legal battle against this because we have no role in it,” said Ajit Mani Tripathi, Tripathi’s brother.
Despite the legislator’s arrest, the CBI is still a few steps away from solving the murder. According to Deshraj’s statement, the murder was carried out by two men. In Tripathi the bureau believes it has the conspirator and the motive but has yet to find the two killers.
