Prime accused of Varanasi mall shooting incident nabbed: Police

Varanasi: A Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth student was arrested for his alleged involvement in the October 31 shooting incident in an upmarket Varanasi shopping Mall in which two persons were killed and two others injured, the police said on Monday.

Prime accused Alok Upadhyay was arrested from a bogey of the Farakka Express train at Cant railway station, the police said. Hiding in Ara district of Bihar after the incident, Alok was on his way to Lucknow, the police added. Soon after the shooting incident, the police had launched a manhunt to nab the miscreants and had been able to trace Alok’s location by keeping his mobile phone on surveillance, they said.

The police said they had earlier arrested Alok’s accomplice Rohit Singh. Alok is presently being interrogated by a Crime Branch team to ascertain his exact role in the crime, they said. The police said the ongoing probe into the sensational shooting incident in the JVH Mall has revealed that Alok and Rohit along with their two other friends Kundan and Rishabh, armed with countrymade pistols, had gone to the mall to threaten a salesman, Prashant, who had misbehaved with one of their friends, working in the showroom.

As Alok began abusing Prashant and others in the Mall, he was caught and overpowered by the staff members of the showroom. Seeing themselves trapped, the four started firing in which two salesmen, Gopi and Sunil, were killed while two others were injured, the police said, adding the accsued had managed to flee from the spot.