Investigators probing the murder of Chandranath Rath, personal assistant to chief minister-elect Suvendu Adhikari, said what initially appeared to be a daring hit has now turned into a textbook case of a high-level contract killing, with the seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) pointing towards a “conspiracy hatched several weeks in advance”.
Probe so far has revealed that around seven to eight individuals, suspected to be involved in the operation, used a dedicated WhatsApp group to exchange real-time intelligence and coordinate their movements around Rath’s vehicle, officials said.
This digital footprint, combined with a meticulous pre-murder “recce” of the area near Rail Gate No. 11, allowed the killers to intercept the victim’s car and vanish within seconds, they added.
The professional nature of the hit was further testified by forensic teams who found the abandoned Nissan Micra, used to stall Nath’s SUV, scrubbed clean of fingerprints, leading to the conclusion that the killers wore gloves throughout the operation to evade DNA and biometric tracking.
“The chilling efficiency of the operation, where Rath was riddled with bullets at point-blank range in Madhyamgram, suggests that the assailants were not just local hoodlums but seasoned professional assassins who left behind a trail of calculated deception,” said an official.
“It is a deep-rooted conspiracy, with sophisticated use of technology and logistics designed to vanish without being caught,” he added.
“The precision of the getaway, the use of fake documents, and the high-tech coordination point to a motive that suggests a hit ordered by those with the resources to hire elite contract killers and manufacture an entirely fake paper trail to cover their tracks,” said the official.
As part of the probe to uncover a web of digital coordination, fake identities, and professional precision, officials also recovered the second two-wheeler allegedly used in the crime.
The second motorcycle was seized near Rail Gate No. 11 in Barasat, around 6 km from the North 24 Parganas district’s Madhyamgram, where Nath was shot dead on Wednesday night, an official said.
However, a trail led investigators to Burnpur in Paschim Bardhaman, where the motorcycle was officially registered to someone by the name of Bibhas Kumar Bhattacharya. However, police reached a government quarter only to find the “owner” simply does not exist, the official said.
According to the official, the current resident, who has been living there since 2014, has no knowledge of the name, revealing that the killers either used a fake number plate or successfully registered the vehicle using a fictitious identity hinting at a long-term planning by highly resourceful facilitators.
Another motorcycle was seized from near Gate No. 2.5 of the Kolkata airport area on Thursday. However, the police found that the registration number plate of that two-wheeler was also fake.
The police had also earlier seized another car near the crime spot in Madhyamgram. The number plate attached to that four-wheeler was found to be fake. The original one belongs to a person based in Siliguri, who works in a tea estate.
“The person in Siliguri had posted an advertisement for the sale of his car on a website. He claimed to have received a call from a prospective buyer based in Uttar Pradesh. There could be a link to UP,” an official said.
In Uttar Pradesh, the team will “collect technical and field-level evidence”, he said, adding that “the police are following certain leads outside the state as well.”
(With PTI inputs)