New Delhi: The CBI on Tuesday filed a chargesheet against jailed RJD leader Mohd. Shahabuddin in the sensational murder case of Siwan-based journalist Rajdeo Ranjan. 

This supplementary chargesheet against Shahabuddin and six other has been filed in a special CBI court in Muzaffarpur (Bihar). 

The agency had filed its earlier chargesheet against one accused in December 2016. The Bihar Police had chargesheeted six persons in the case before the probe was taken over by the agency.

The CBI has charged Shahabuddin, currently lodged in Tihar, under IPC (Indian Penal Code) sections related to criminal conspiracy and murder and provisions of the Arms Act. 

The four-time RJD MP from Siwan is alleged to have been involved in the murder of Ranjan, a journalist of a prominent Hindi daily in Siwan last year. Other five persons in the chargesheet are Laddan Mian alias Azharuddin Beg, Rishu Kumar Jaiswal, Rohit Kumar Soni, Vijay Kumar Gupta, Rajesh Kumar and Sonu Kumar Gupta. 

“The agency collected sufficient scientific evidence against Shahabuddin. The probe revealed that he played an active role in hatching the conspiracy to eliminate Ranjan,” sources said. 

Sources added after he refused to undergo a ‘lie-detection’ test, it became quite clear he was hiding facts related to the case. He gave conflicting versions during custodial interrogation, sources said.

Shahabuddin was in jail when the journalist was killed in Siwan while he was returning from office on May 13, 2016. Shahabuddin, facing over 39 criminal cases, including those of kidnapping and murder, was transferred to the Tihar jail in February. 

The CBI took over the case in September 2016 after the slain journalist’s widow Asha Ranjan and his father Radhe Krishna Chaudhary repeatedly alleged that Shahabuddin was behind the murder. The suspicion over Shahabuddin’s involvement had deepened after the names of two of his henchmen Mohammad Kaif and Mohammad Javed surfaced.