Independent MP Pappu Yadav from Bihar
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Bihar Independent MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav allegedly received a death threat from a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, claimed a complaint lodged with the Delhi Police on Thursday.
Yadav's PA Mohammad Sadique Alam, who submitted the complaint at the Connaught Place police station, told PTI that he received two messages on his mobile phone on Thursday morning wherein the sender, claiming to be a member of the Bishnoi gang, threatened to eliminate Yadav.
Citing the complaint, Alam said the first message was received at 2.25 am while the second came at 9.49 am, adding that he immediately reported the matter to the police after informing his seniors.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Devesh Kumar Mahla did not respond to calls or text messages till the filing of this report.
Yadav, who recently described the Bishnoi gang as "petty thugs", received a similar threat last month as well.
On November 2, Bihar Police claimed to have arrested a person from the national capital who reportedly sent the threat to Yadav posing as an associate of jailed gangster Bishnoi.
According to a statement issued by the police in Purnea, Yadav’s parliamentary constituency in Bihar, a case was registered on the basis of reports surfacing on social and mainstream media and the caller was identified as Mahesh Pandey, a resident of Delhi.
Yadav had shot off letters to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, pleading for enhanced security, after having received the call 'from a Dubai number'.
The police, however, made it clear that they have so far found “no links of Lawrence Bishnoi gang” with Pandey, who was being interrogated.
According to the police, Pandey confessed to have contacted the MP through WhatsApp using a SIM card he borrowed from his wife’s sister who lives in the UAE.
Pandey played the prank on Yadav after coming across reports of the MP’s outbursts against Bishnoi soon after the assassination of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddiqui.
Notably, Yadav had come out with a social media post stating that he could “finish off within 24 hours” the gang of Bishnoi, suspected to be behind the killing, “if permitted by the law” to do so.