Kolkata: As investigations intensify into the shocking, cold-blooded assassination of Chandranath Rath, the personal assistant to senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, a major breakthrough has introduced a baffling new twist. Police attempting to trace the four-wheeler used by the fleeing miscreants have discovered that it bore a completely fake number plate with a mysterious Darjeeling connection.
The gruesome incident occurred late at night in Madhyamgram when Rath’s SUV was intercepted, and he was shot dead at point-blank range. Eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage procured from the crime scene revealed that the heavily armed hitmen used a vehicle to strategically waylay Rath’s car before opening fire. However, the subsequent manhunt hit a significant roadblock when investigators ran the details of the attackers’ vehicle through the regional transport database.
According to police sources, the registration number displayed on the killers’ getaway car actually belongs to a different vehicle registered miles away in the hills of Darjeeling. Authorities have confirmed that the number plate was meticulously forged to mislead law enforcement and securely cover the tracks of the culprits.
This chilling discovery of a phantom vehicle strongly reinforces suspicions that the assassination was a highly sophisticated, pre-planned operation executed by professional hitmen. “The use of a cloned or fake Darjeeling number plate indicates that the assailants did thorough reconnaissance and took every possible precaution to delay the investigation,” an investigating officer revealed on the condition of anonymity.
Special police teams are now coordinating with their counterparts in North Bengal to verify if there is an actual Darjeeling link to the conspirators, or if the registration was chosen purely as a geographical decoy. As the state’s political climate remains incredibly tense, uncovering the true origin of this “ghost car” has become the critical missing piece in solving this high-profile murder mystery.