Jaipur:
A former minister and the BJP's chief whip in the Rajasthan Assembly, Rajendra Rathore has been remanded to police custody till April 10. Mr Rathore was arrested earlier in the day in a case of a fake encounter. Dara Singh, a known felon, was shot dead in a police encounter in October 2006 and his family alleged that the encounter had been staged at the behest of Mr Rathore.
Mr Rathore was arrested today when he arrived at the CBI office in Jaipur for questioning in the case.
Rajendra Rathore was a cabinet minister in Vasundhara Raje's BJP government when Dara Singh, a wanted criminal from the Churu district and an alleged part of the liquor mafia, was killed in the encounter on the outskirts of the state capital, Jaipur.
Singh's family moved court and in April 2010, the Supreme Court handed the case over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which filed a chargesheet in the case nine months ago.
In its chargesheet, the CBI did not include Mr Rathore as an accused, but said he had a "strong motive" to have Dara Singh killed. This motive, the CBI said, stemmed from rivalry - the politician and the criminal supported rival gangs of liquor smugglers, the investigating agency alleges.
It said in the chargesheet that there were two rival liquor gangs in Rajasthan's Churu and Jhunjhunu districts - one headed by a Sumer Singh, whose group included Dara Singh, the CBI alleged, and the other run by a man called Virender Singh, who the CBI alleged, enjoyed the patronage of Rajendra Rathore.
Besides Mr Rathore, the CBI has so far arrested about a dozen police officials in the case, including two IPS officers.
The Supreme Court will hear this case tomorrow.