Jaipur, Dec 5
Shri Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena (SRRKS) president Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi was shot dead in Jaipur on Tuesday by three assailants, one of whom was also killed in retaliatory firing, police said.
According to police, the incident took place on Tuesday afternoon at Gogamedi’s home in Jaipur’s Shyam Nagar. After he was shot, Gogamedi was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead. “Prima facie it seems that three people shot Gogamedi at his house in Shyam Nagar today (Tuesday). One of the assailants was also shot dead in retaliatory firing. He has been identified as Naveen Singh Shekhawat. A friend of Gogamedi was critically injured while his personal security officer was shot in the leg,” Jaipur Commissioner of Police Biju George Joseph said.
The Commissioner said that two of the assailants were on the run.
After the incident, members of the Rajput community reached the hospital in large numbers.
“Gogamedi had been receiving threats for the past one year and had also asked for more security from the police. We want immediate arrest of the accused and want them hanged. We are not going to accept the body as long as our demands are not met,” said Narayan Singh Divrala, the Jaipur district president of the Shri Rajput Karni Sena (SRKS), a different outfit than the one Gogamedi led.
“Our outfits may have been different, but the entire Rajput community is united at this tough time,” said Divrala.
While the SRKS was formed in 2006 by the late Lokendra Singh Kalvi, in recent times, several splinter groups have formed their own outfits, retaining the Karni Sena moniker.
Gogamedi was once close to Kalvi and was the state president of the Karni Sena but was later expelled from the SRKS by Kalvi in 2015, after which he floated the SRRKS.
Over the last few years, the Gogamedi-led SRRKS left its parent organisation far behind, often through violent protests, and most notably through protests over the movie ‘Padmaavat’. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali was assaulted by SRRKS members in January 2017 during the film’s shooting at Jaigarh fort in Jaipur.
