The case of the failed attempt to murder tehelka.com editor Tarun Tejpal has taken a new twist with Delhi Police alleging that Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammed Sahabuddin was in league with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to eliminate the tehelka editor and his colleague Aniruddha Bahal.

The police claim that hitman Bhupinder Tyagi alias Avadesh alias Modi, arrested in Delhi along with five of his associates on Sunday, revealed during his interrogation that Sahabuddin was part of the conspiracy to kill Tejpal and Bahal.

Top sources in the police confirmed that Sahabuddin's name had indeed cropped up in the ongoing probe. They said Tyagi had claimed that the Lok Sabha MP from Siwan constituency in Bihar state had even visited Nepal with him to hatch the conspiracy. A top police officer with police's intelligence branch said the police were in the process of gathering evidence to nail the MP.

Special Commissioner (Intelligence) Ramakrishnan refused to comment as that could hamper the ongoing investigations. A top-level team including Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Rajbir Singh is touring the Bihar-Nepal border with Tyagi to check the latter's disclosures. The team will go to Siwan too to verify Tyagi's association with the controversial MP.

When contacted by Gulf News, Sahabuddin denied the allegation as a figment of police imagination. The MP who has several criminal cases pending against him, claimed that all the police in the country had turned against him after the Siwan police had an encounter with his men at his home last month.

Sahabuddin claimed that he did not need a "petty thief" like Tyagi to carry out his business. He asked as to how could he plot Tejpal's murder when his party had hailed tehelka.com's investigations on defence deals.

In an encounter at his residence between his henchmen and the Siwan police last month, 11 people had died. The Lok Sabha MP is alleged to have been extorting money (a kind of protection tax known as rangdari in local parlance) from businessman in his constituency.

Last June, an industrialist Viren Pandey from Siwan had approached the Supreme Court alleging that he feared for his life as he had not paid rangdari to Sahabuddin. The court had asked Bihar Director General of Police (DGP) to give security to the industrialist. But Sahabuddin denied he extorted rangdari from businessmen of his area.

Tyagi has revealed that the conspiracy to murder the tehelka.com editor was hatched in April this year at a base of the ISI in Nepal in the presence of at least ten functionaries of the top Pakistani intelligence agency. He said that he visited the ISI base more than a dozen times with the MP.

Tyagi and his accomplices were promised a sum of Rs1 million by the ISI for carrying out the murders. Besides, the weapons supplied from the ISI, were to be given away to them. Tyagi was given a consignment of 10 AK-47 rifles, 11 pistols and a large number of cartridges. A few days ago, he brought from Nepal one more AK-47 rifle, one pistol, cartridges, a bullet proof jacket and fake currency notes of denomination of Rs25,000.

Tyagi arrived in Delhi on Sunday in a Tata Safari but was immediately trapped by a special cell team led by ACP Rajbir Singh. His five accomplices – Raj Kumar, Dinesh Tyagi, Rakesh, Anil and Ombir – who were travelling with him, were also arrested.