Kolkata, 19 July

At least five persons have been arrested from New Town near Kolkata in connection with the murder of gangster Chandan Mishra in a Patna hospital, police said on Saturday.

The accused were apprehended from a housing complex in the satellite township of the metropolis following raids conducted jointly by the Patna Police and West Bengal STF in the early hours of Saturday, they said.

Mishra, a resident of Buxar district of Bihar, who was a murder convict and out on parole, was shot dead by gunmen inside a private hospital in Patna on Thursday morning.

“All the accused were hiding in a flat in the housing complex in New Town area. Of the five, four were directly involved in the killing. They fled Patna after the incident and came to Kolkata,” a police officer said.

“Their mobile phone tower location helped us track them. The Bihar Police will produce them before a local court, seeking transit remand,” he said.

A purported CCTV footage of the incident, which went viral on social media, showed five armed men entering the ICU of the hospital and opening fire at Mishra.

Mishra was lodged at Beur Jail and had gone to the hospital for treatment on parole, police said, adding, he was involved in 24 criminal cases, including over 12 murder cases.

SP Patna (Central) Diksha had told PTI on Friday that a probe is underway as to how the criminals managed to reach the room where Mishra was admitted without any security check.

“This raises serious questions over the security arrangements at the hospital. Five unmasked armed assailants reached the second floor, opened fire at Mishra, and fled the premises. Investigators are certainly looking into any complicity that may have led to the security lapse,” she had said.