Hari Sethiya, a working committee member of Siddhartha Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was first shot by unidentified group on February 13 at around 9 pm.
Injured Sethiya received treatment at Bhairahawa-based Bhim Hospital. He urged the health workers not to tell about the incident to anybody. He claimed he fell down and was injured.
Police knew about the incident five days later when Sethiya reached hospital for the second time for dressing.
Meanwhile, Rupandehi Police started investigation about his past and present as Sethiya tried to cover up the reason of attack.
Sethiya came under the second attack on March 14. One of the attackers was Indian national Ramajan Musalman who was later detained by police with the help of locals while another was on the run.
Police also caught up the shooter, Indian national Manjoor Mustaaj Musalman. Manjoor had shot Sethiya after receiving Rs 50,000 in advance from Mohan Baniya, who agreed to pay him Rs 1.50 million. Police launched investigation on the statement of Manjoor but found Baniya was innocent.
Police found that Ajay Jaiswal and Manjoor were involved in attacking Sethiya for the first time. Sethiya was only injured that time. After Ajay failed to shoot Sethiya, he stepped back.
Ramajan and Manjoor attacked Sethiya for the second time. Both were drunk while attacking Sethiya which meant the second attempt also failed.
Police became suspicious after Sethiya tried to conceal the repeated attacks on him. Rupandehi Police, that was investigating on Mohan Baniya on the basis of the statement of Manjoor, later conducted a study on his business and other related matters.
Meanwhile, police found that Indian national Abjal Saddam, a partner of Sethiya in Hawala trade, was the main accused who devised a plan to shoot Sethiya. Saddam had planned to kill Sethiya two months ago. Saddam wanted to kill Sethiya on the day Sethiya sends a large amount of money to India to earn more money. Sethiya had sent Rs 3.50 million Saddam via Hawala on March 14.
Sethiya and Saddam were business partners in various transactions including Hawala and dhukuti, a type of deal among members wherein each member periodically contribute a certain member and the members take turn to receive all the collected member during that period. Police later called Saddam to Nepal using Sethiya.
Sethiya and Saddam tried their best to conceal their illegal transactions. All the conversations and messages related to Hawala were deleted from Saddam's mobile. Both of them used to converse on Whatsapp. But both of them have eventually been nabbed.
