A protracted property dispute led to the June 13 contract killing of Manisha Mittal, 41, the administrator of Saraswati Paradise International School at Sanjauli in Shimla district, police said on Tuesday.
Following a multi-state manhunt, the Shimla police arrested the victim’s brother, Himank Mittal—the suspected mastermind—and his business associate, Govind, from Rohtak in Haryana on June 28. While Govind has been brought to Shimla and remanded to four days of police custody, Himank remains under police guard in a Rohtak hospital due to a medical condition and will be transferred once he is fit to travel.
The two hired shooters, Ashish Ahlawat and Deepak, were arrested in Rohtak within 40 hours of the murder and the police recovered the two pistols used to gun down Manisha Mittal at the school’s gate.
The police formed a special investigation team (SIT) and launched an investigation spanning Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and other states for the two masked assailants.
According to Shimla assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Mehar Panwar, Himank used his personal access to the school’s CCTV network to track his sister’s daily movements, sharing the live feed with the hitmen through Govind to coordinate the attack. Himank retained remote streaming access to the school’s CCTV cameras despite the two-decade-long property dispute.
Financing and logistics for the hit were meticulously tracked by the investigators, who discovered that Himank transferred approximately ₹8.5 lakh to Govind’s account shortly before the attack. From this pool, Govind transferred ₹20,000 electronically to the shooters, handed them ₹50,000 in cash, and rented the getaway car used in the crime.
In an attempt to establish an alibi, Govind flew abroad days before the murder and returned on June 19, subsequently turning off his phone to evade arrest before technical surveillance compromised his location.
On June 18, Shimla deputy commissioner Anupam Kashyap has placed the management of Saraswati Paradise International School under state control, appointing additional district magistrate Jyoti Rana as administrator for six months to ensure uninterrupted academic operations.
Manisha Mittal was a native of Rewari district in Haryana. She is survived by her husband, Dr Subhash Yadav, and a minor daughter. For a month and a half before the murder, Manisha and her daughter had been living in a residence on the school campus amid escalating security fears. Just weeks prior, she had posted a video on social media stating that her brother, Himank, posed a direct threat to her life over the school’s ownership.
