Jaipur, Jun 3 (IANS): A key, long-absconding suspect in the 2011 abduction and murder of Rajasthan midwife Bhanwari Devi has been finally arrested from Madhya Pradesh in a joint operation, a Rajasthan Police official said on Saturday.
Indira Bishnoi, the sister of former Luni legislator Malkhan Singh Bishnoi, was arrested from Madhya Pradesh's Dewas in a late Friday night joint operation of Rajasthan Police's Special Operational Group and Madhya Pradesh Police. She was brought to Jodhpur and produced before a magistrate, who remanded her in seven days police custody.
"She was arrested from near Dewas area last night," a police official told IANS, adding that after being remanded to custody, she was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation which is handling the case.
Bishnoi, who was absconding for the last almost six years, had a reward of Rs 5 lakh on her head.
The case dates to 2011 when the name of Mahipal Maderna, a minister in the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government, and then legislator Malkhan Singh Bishnoi cropped up in the kidnapping and murder of the auxiliary nurse midwife, who was allegedly blackmailing both of them as she had a CD with her in a compromising position with Maderna.
The CBI has filed couple of charge sheets so far against 17 accused, including Maderna and Malkhan Singh.
The agency has so far arrested 16 people, including Malkhan Singh and Maderna. All, save one who is out on bail, remain in judicial custody.
Bishnoi, who was the only suspect absconding, was believed to be close to Bhanwari Devi and was involved in the conspiracy behind the nurse's disappearance on September 1, 2011.
"Indira remained the only major suspect who was on the run in the Bhanwari Devi case. She had been summoned for questioning several times, but she did not turn up," a CBI source told IANS.
It is alleged that Bhanwari Devi was kidnapped from Bilara in Jodhpur on September 1, 2011, killed and her body was handed over to a gang of criminals, who burnt her to ashes and dumped her remains into a canal.
A search by teams of the CBI and the Central Forensic Science Laboratory had found two guns, a gunny bag, some bone fragments, a charred mobile phone, a locket, watch, earrings and bracelet from a crater and a canal near Jaloda, near Jodhpur. Bhanwari Devi's son Sahil had confirmed that some of the items belonged to his mother.