Chandranath killing: Bengal CID travels to UP following lead on Rath’s assassins; no arrests made
Telegraph | 10 May 2026
A team from the Bengal CID that travelled to Uttar Pradesh following a lead on the assassins of Chandranath Rath — personal assistant to then chief minister-probable Suvendu Adhikari — failed to make any arrests on Saturday, sources said.
Rath was gunned down inside a Mahindra Scorpio on Wednesday night while returning to his Madhyamgram apartment.
Investigators had initially believed the suspected assailants fled to Gunnaur, a town in Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh, after executing the murder.
“The team picked up two youths from Gunnaur and questioned them for several hours. But nothing conclusive emerged,” a senior police officer in Lucknow said on condition of anonymity.
The officer said the team had been acting on inputs suggesting the killers were hiding in Gunnaur. They first reached Badaun district and met senior police officers for assistance before moving to Sambhal, after electronic surveillance reportedly pointed to Gunnaur, the officer said.
Gunnaur was earlier part of Badaun district until 2011, when it was incorporated into the newly formed district of Sambhal, which was carved out of Moradabad.
Suvendu was sworn in as chief minister of the first BJP government in Bengal on Saturday.
Ankita Sharma, Badaun’s senior superintendent of police, said: “Bengal Police officers had reached Badaun on their way to Gunnaur to search for someone. But they did not find anything there and returned.”
However, K.K. Bishnoi, superintendent of police of Sambhal, denied any search operation by Bengal Police in the district and termed the information “baseless”.
Late on Saturday night, sources said a few persons were detained in Uttar Pradesh.
An officer said investigators were working on technical inputs derived from “call dump” data collected from mobile towers near the crime scene.
Call dump refers to technical data tracking mobile call traffic routed through a particular tower during a specific time window, used to trace movements and contacts.