Ludhiana:

Police on Monday arrested a local AAP leader, his girlfriend and four alleged contract killers in connection with the murder of his wife, who is also a party leader.

Lipsy Mittal (33), wife of Anokh Mittal, was killed on Saturday by robbers near a village here, officials said.

Anokh and his wife Lipsy were returning home after having dinner at a hotel on the Ludhiana-Malerkotla road, police had said.

He had initially told the police that robbers intercepted them on Saturday, attacked the couple with sharp-edged weapons and fled with their car.

Police Commissioner Kuldeep Singh Chahal said that the key conspirator of the murder turned out to be the woman’s husband.

He said that the police have arrested her husband and local AAP leader Anokh Mittal (35), also a businessman and his 24-year-old girlfriend.

Police said that Anokh’s wife had discovered that her husband had an extramarital affair following which he hatched the plan to his wife with the girlfriend.

The commissioner said that besides Anokh and his girlfriend, four contract killers — Amritpal Singh alias Balli (26), Gurdeep Singh alias Manni (25), Sonu Singh (24) and Sagardeep Singh alias Teji (30) — have also been arrested.

He added that Amritpal, Gurdeep and Sonu are from nearby village Nandpur and Sagardeep is a resident of Dhandari Kalan.

Meanwhile, the kingpin of the contract killers’ gang, Gurpreet Singh alias Gopi, is still on the run, he said.

Anokh had promised to pay Rs 2.5 lakhs to the contract killers and paid Rs 50,000 in advance, the police officer said.

Further investigations were in progress, police said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)