Dhanusha District Police on Wednesday said suspended lawmaker Sanjaya Kumar Sah masterminded the murder of media entrepreneur Arun Singhaniya. 

Organising a press meet on Wednesday, Superintendent of Police (SP) Ramdatta Joshi claimed that the suspects had hatched a plan to kill Singhaniya at Sah’s house at Kadam Chowk. Sah was also involved in the Janakpur bomb of 2012 in which five people were killed.

Elected from Dhanusha-4 to the second Constituent Assembly, Sah was suspended after the government opened a probe into the blast. “Sah had provided weapons and money to the assailants to kill Singhaniya. After the incident, he provided shelter to the suspects in his own office and took them to Kishannagar in his government vehicle along the East-West Highway the following day,” said SP Joshi. Singhaniya, the chairman of the Janakpur Today Communications Group, was shot dead at Shiva Chowk in Janakpur on March 1, 2010.

Police claimed that Singhaniya had disputes with Sah over some news contents.

According to the police, Chandradeep Yadav, the main suspect, said Sah and his aides Ram Govinda Yadav and Om Prakash Yadav had provided Rs1 million for the crime. Chandradeep was held from last week.