Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Sunday supported his state police's findings in Hindu Samaj Party (HSP) leader Kamlesh Tiwari's murder saying the truth in the case is "almost out".
He said the allegation levelled by deceased Tiwari's mother that a local BJP leader was involved in her son's killing over a land dispute must have been made in "anguish".
Tiwari, 45, earlier associated with a faction of the Hindu Mahasabha, was killed at his home in Lucknow on Friday. Five people were detained, including three in Gujarat's Surat, in connection with his murder.
Uttar Pradesh police had said on Saturday that the suspects were "radicalised" and appeared to have targeted him for his inflammatory remarks made in 2015.
Talking to reporters at the BJP office in Indore, Maurya said, "Kamlesh Tiwari murder case has been cracked. The truth of this incident has almost come out before the country."
When asked about this, Maurya said, "Tiwari might have had enmity with someone. But this is a different side. Tiwari's mother is definitely in great anguish. We respect her."
On the BJP's Maharashtra election manifesto raising the demand for the Bharat Ratna for Hindutva icon V D Savarkar, he said, "Mahatma Gandhi and Savarkar were not opposed to each other. There was no difference of opinion on the issue that the country should be freed from the British."
To a query on Congress describing Savarkar as one of the accused in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination case, Maurya said, "When Savarkar was acquitted of all charges in this case, should you (the media) ask a question about this? Questions should not be raised about such a personality (Savarkar), who struggled to give us the right to live as citizens of an independent country."