Six of the arrested suspects are teenagers from affluent as well as middle and lower-middle class families, studying at various colleges here. The seventh is a notorious goon with offences like murder attempt pending against him.

Eight more, including the drivers of the two autorickshaws used in the crime and two hardcore criminals, were absconding and the police is expected to arrest them soon.

Rathi, who also owned the Nitish Telecom Centre near Zero Mile, was stabbed to death at the telecom centre late evening of September 19. Earlier, the same morning he was involved in an unsavoury scuffle with a young client who had then left the booth, issuing threats of dire consequences.

Prima facie themurder seemed to be a fallout of the scuffle and with the arrested suspects confessing to their involvement and narrating events, preceding the killing, to the police, ``the motive of vengeance has been established beyond doubt.''

Dilip Mahadev Motghare, a notorious criminal, has been identified as the one who stabbed Rathi with the spearhead which was recovered from the murder spot. Zuber Rafiq Rangoonwala, an ITI mechanical trade student and son of a wealthy builder, was the client who got into a scuffle with Rathi and was since rooting for vengeance. Harry Rafael Francis and Baba, both hardcore criminals, were the other two who accompanied Zuber and Dilip at the telecom centre. The two are among those reported absconding.

The remaining 11 suspects, including Ravi Manohar Ganvir and Mohatesham Asrar Khan, both 12th standard students of Sindhu College, Madhusudhan Laxmanrao Rao and Nitin Chokinath Chaware, students of Sindhi Hindi Mahavidyalaya and Pankaj Devanand Belekar, a first-year civil diplomastudent of Datta Meghe Polytechnic, waited near the autorickshaws and the two scooters on which they had arrived near the telecom centre. The vehicles were parked along the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan compound to facilitate a smooth get-away route for the culprits.

Interrogations revealed that Zuber, who was slapped and pushed out of the booth by Rathi during the scuffle, was bent on revenge and aired his feelings to accomplice Mohatesham while the two were on way back to home following the scuffle. It was Mohatesham who took him to Harry Francis, cousin of dreaded gangster Babloo Francis and the two bared their mental design in front of Harry. The latter asked them to come to Aawale Chowk in Lashkaribag around 6 pm, the same day, along with other friends.

Having done so, the group of 15 hired two autorickshaws from Aawale Chowk and headed for Zero Mile. Zuber and Harry were driving their own scooters with pillion riders and the rest got into the two autorickshaws. The plan was to `assault and terrorise'Rathi.

The group parked their vehicles along the school compound around 8.15 pm. Harry walked across the street to check activities at the telecom centre and found that there were three clients waiting for their turn to make the calls. He came back to his accomplices and asked them to wait for a while.

About 15 minutes later when they noticed the three clients leaving the place, Zuber, Harry, Baba and Dilip headed for the telecom centre. Entering the premises, Zuber identified Rathi for the benefit of his accomplices. Dilip pulled out the spearhead and stabbed Rathi twice before the foursome started running back towards the autorickshaws.