New Delhi, August 2
With the arrest of two more suspects from Roorkee, the Delhi police today claimed to have moved a step closer in solving the sensational daylight murder of the Samajwadi Party MP and former bandit queen, Mrs Phoolan Devi, outside her Ashoka Road residence on July 25.

The suspects, identified as Pankaj Kalra, whose identity the prime suspect Sher Singh Rana had reportedly assumed, and Vicky, a nephew of a Uttar Pradesh MLA, have been brought to the Capital and were now being interrogated.

The police has also sent a party to Bihar to trace Shravan, an employee of the liquor shop owned by Sher Singh Rana, who is believed to have offered himself to stay in the Hardwar jail in his place after the bail was cancelled on July 19. Shravan is believed to have been paid a hefty sum for this.

The investigations have revealed how the suspects had tried to weave a web of intrigue around the whole incident to confound the police and throw them off track by forging documents, getting sureties withdrawn in Hardwar and generally creating confusion all around.

Senior police officers monitoring the case said all four suspects arrested earlier had tried to firm up alibis by showing that they were interned in the Hardwar jail on the day of the crime. The police, however, had caught on to their act and had played ignorant, finally nabbing their proxies.

The police said the political affiliations of all suspects who were reported to be active in student politics were being investigated to ascertain if there was a political angle to it.

The police is also interrogating Keshav Singh Chauhan, a political activist who had reportedly picked up the two country made guns used in the killing from near the gate of the Ashoka Road residence and hid them in the garage. The police said they were trying to ascertain the motive behind this act. A case of tampering with evidence has been registered against him.