The police said Mishra used to get several projects from the PWD. A supari for his murder was paid by Divakar, who used to work with him but desired to get contracts on his own.

On January 3, Mishra’s body was found near his house at Kasturi Bhavan. He was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead. “Crime Branch Unit 2 started conducting parallel probe in the case, which revealed that Divakar, who lives in Bhayander, was working with him for the past two to three years, and wanted to branch out. But Mishra did not give him the opportunity, and he became angry,” said JCP (Crime) Rakesh Maria.

Then Divakar approached his distant relative Gopal Upadhyay (30), who in turn spoke to his uncle Rajeshwar Upadhyay, a notorious gangster serving life imprisonment in Naini prison at Allahabad. “Rajeshwar was given a supari, after which he arranged for two shooters, Bablu Phoolan Khan alias Balla (21) and Dilip Singh (26), to come to the city from Mirzapur in UP. Gopal arranged for a chopper and a country made revolver,” said Maria.