In Kanhaiya Lal murder case, NIA names 2 Pakistani nationals as accused

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a chargecheet before NIA Special Court in Rajasthan's Jaipur against 11 accused persons in a case related to the brutal killing of Kanhaiya Lal Teli in Udaipur. A tailor by profession, Kanhaiya Lal was beheaded by two miscreants after he allegedly circulated a post supporting suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma earlier this year. In the chargesheet, two out of the 11 accused have their roots in Pakistan. According to sources, the two Pakistanis have been identified as Salman and Abu Ibrahim who hail from Karachi.

According to the investigations, the accused persons were operating as a terror gang and had conspired to take revenge for the social media post allegedly shared by the deceased. The accused are said to have drawn inspiration from incriminating audios, videos and messages from within and outside India and had arranged knives and arms to murder Kanhaiya Lal. 

Following the murder, two prime accused Rafiq Mohammed and Abdul Jabbar even released a chilling video where they took responsibility and even threatened PM Narendra Modi. The angle of a Pakistani link into the murder was long suspected which prompted the Home Minstry to send the NIA to Udaipur for investigations. It was found that the criminals were influenced by Dawat-i-Islami, a Pakistan-based organisation, which runs several educational institutions and offers online courses in Islamic studies.

The tailor Kanhaiya Lal was killed with a cleaver inside his tailoring shop in Rajasthan's Udaipur on June 28. The gruesome attack by Riaz Akhtari on the tailor was recorded on a mobile phone by Ghouse Mohammad and the video was posted online. In another video, the duo said they hacked Lal to death to avenge an alleged insult to Islam. Both were arrested within hours of the killing.