ATS Sends Brijesh Ganjhu’s Phone for Forensic Probe Over Encrypted Chat App

Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad investigators have sent the mobile phone recovered after Sunday’s Ramnagar encounter for forensic examination, focusing on encrypted chat traffic they say was handled through the Zangi messaging app.

Brijesh Ganjhu alias Gopal Singh Bhokta, described by police as a Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee commander with a combined bounty near ₹30 lakh, was killed in the early-Sunday operation near Lanka Maidan under Ramnagar police station. That encounter narrative — tip-off, motorcycle interception, alleged exchange of fire, and an associate who fled — is already on the public police record and remains subject to magisterial and legal process.

Monday’s follow-up, according to agency briefings, turns to the handset. Officers said Ganjhu allegedly used Zangi — also rendered as Jangi in some Hindi notes — to stay in touch with organisational contacts and family. The app, investigators claim, lets users communicate through unique identifiers rather than ordinary SIM-linked numbers and stores encrypted chats and calls in ways that complicate routine interception. Forensic staff are expected to pull contacts, call logs and message residue where recovery is possible.

The probe also widens beyond Varanasi. Agencies say they are examining whether levy money linked to Ganjhu’s alleged network moved into coal, tendu-leaf, real estate and transport interests in West Bengal, and whether he sheltered for years in Maharashtra under changed identities while cases stacked up in Jharkhand. One agency estimate floated around a ₹500 crore asset-and-investment figure; that number is an investigation claim, not a court finding.

Forty-four cases of varying gravity — including murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, arms and unlawful-activities counts — have been cited against him in earlier records, police say. The immediate ATS priorities named on Monday were narrower: identify the absconding motorcycle associate, map who answered the Varanasi trip, and read whatever the phone still holds.

None of that digital trail is public yet. Forensic labs take time, encrypted apps do not always yield clean exports, and defence lawyers will contest every recovered string. Until chargesheets and court exhibits exist, the Zangi angle remains an investigative lead attached to a closed encounter file.

For Varanasi, the practical residue is local: an encounter site under Ramnagar, a phone in a lab queue, and a continuing search for the man who rode away. The broader financial map, if it hardens, will be written in Jharkhand, Bengal and Maharashtra case files as much as in a Banaras police diary.

Family members who received the body after postmortem have not been part of Monday’s digital briefing. The forensic queue, meanwhile, will decide how much of the alleged chat graph can be reconstructed — and whether any Varanasi-side facilitator name survives the extraction.