More than a week after a TMC worker was shot dead in broad daylight in Naihati in North 24 Parganas district, the SIT of West Bengal Police arrested the prime accused, Rajesh Shaw, and his accomplice, Vishal, from a village in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed to probe the murder of 40-year-old Santosh Yadav, arrested the two during a raid in a village in the Fefna area of Ballia on Monday night.

Sources in the SIT said they were tipped about the presence of Rajesh and Vishal in Ballia. Rajesh had been absconding since the murder of Yadav on February 1.

Sub-Inspectors Satyanarayan Pandey and Aritra Chandra of the Barrackpore Police, with the assistance of UP Police, raided a cowshed in a remote village within the Fefna Police Station area of Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh on Monday. They caught Rajesh and Vishal while they were sleeping. Both were presented in the Ballia district chief judicial magistrate’s court, which granted a four-day transit remand to West Bengal,” a senior member of the SIT said.

Previously, the SIT had arrested four men, including Rajesh Shaw’s son Akash in connection with the murder.

The SIT had formed four groups of police officers to find the absconding accused in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Sources said SIT members also visited Begusarai and Sikandarpur to find Rajesh.

Yadav’s murder had led to a slugfest between the ruling TMC and the Opposition BJP. While the TMC alleged that local BJP leader and strongman Arjun Singh was behind the murder, Singh called it a fallout of internal rift in the TMC.