Mukesh Singh, a hotel owner and transport tycoon of Kishanganj was killed on Tuesday (June 26, 2012) morning. As per sources, the body of Singh was thrown on the rail tracks near Baluchuka, some 2 km from district headquarters of Kishanganj. Police said, Singh was sitting on a wooden platform outside his roadside hotel at Faringola on the borders of Bihar-West Bengal, when a group of business rivals and criminals reached the spot around 2.45 am in the wee hours on Tuesday.
They reportedly started a quarrel with him and after a heated exchange they forcibly lifted and dumped him into a Bolero, even before the hotel staff could come out and save him. They whisked him away towards North Bengal. Singh's body with head and arms severed was found abandoned on the rail track, Kishanganj RPF inspector R K Singh said. The assailants appeared to have shot him dead and then thrown his body on the rail track obviously to obliterate the evidences, police sources said. Alwabari (West bengal) GRP and Goalpokher police ( North Dinajpur) are now probing the incident.
The needle of suspicion has riveted to slain hotelier's business rival and his associates on the basis of the statements of the hotel staff. There were, at least, four persons when Singh was forcibly lifted and taken away, Kishanganj police said.
The brutal killing is said to be the fallout of 'entry fee' collection, which has tainted the transport department here. There was a long feud between two groups of roadside hoteliers or dhaba owners and transporters over collection of illegal entry fee, according to highly placed sources in the district. The truckers and others are allegedly forced to shell out hefty sums called 'entry fee' for passing through the 4km-long corridor of National Highway-31.
