Beed Sarpanch Murder: 3 More Arrested, Accused Linked To Organised Extortion Racket, Police Say

Beed sarpanch murder: Three suspects were arrested in the murder case of sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh. The suspects were part of an extortion racket targeting firms in the region, police said.

Representational Image | Absconding accused Sudarshan Chandrabhan Ghule (26) and Sudhir Sangle (23) were picked up from Pune, while Siddharth Sonawane, whose alleged role in the conspiracy came to light during the probe, was held at Kalyan in Thane district

Source : ABP LIVE AI

Mumbai, Jan 4 (PTI) Three persons including two absconding accused wanted in the murder case of sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh have been arrested from Pune and Kalyan, taking the total arrests to seven, police said on Saturday.

Absconding accused Sudarshan Chandrabhan Ghule (26) and Sudhir Sangle (23) were picked up from Pune, while Siddharth Sonawane, whose alleged role in the conspiracy came to light during the probe, was held at Kalyan in Thane district, officials said.

All three were produced on Saturday before a court at Kej in central Maharashtra's Beed district which remanded them in 14-day custody of the Special Investigation Team of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) which is probing the case.

The police told the court that the three were part of an organised racket to extort money from firms setting up or operating projects in the region.

Sonawane, a resident of Massajog village, was suspected to have kept a tab on the victim's movements and informed the other accused, police sources said.

The police had earlier arrested Jairam Manik Change (21), Mahesh Sakharam Kedar (21), Prateek Ghule (24) and Vishnu Chate (45) in the murder case, while Krushna Andhale, another accused, is still at large.

Santosh Deshmukh, sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed district, was abducted, tortured and murdered on December 9, apparently because he tried to thwart an attempt to extort money from an energy firm operating a windmill project. Walmik Karad, an aide of Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, has been arrested in the extortion case.

Police monitored the movements of Dr Sambhaji Vaybhase after his alleged links with Sudarshan Ghule surfaced during the investigation. His questioning led to the arrest of Ghule and Sangle in Pune, sources in Beed Police said.

After questioning, police handed over Vaybhase, picked up from Nanded, to the CID, an official said, without clarifying if he was put under arrest.

Police suspect that Vaybhase helped Ghule flee after Deshmukh's murder, he said.

Amid a political blame-game over the Deshmukh murder case, BJP MLA Suresh Dhas launched a fresh attack on Dhananjay Munde and alleged that the two men arrested from Pune are just "pawns" while the "key accused" are roaming free.

NCP MLA Prakash Solanke said Munde be dropped from the council of ministers to ensure a fair probe into the murder case.

Solanke is the first Nationalist Congress Party leader and second from the Mahayuti coalition to target Munde, an MLA from Beed district. BJP MLA Suresh Dhas has been criticising Munde, without naming him, for crime in Beed.

An all-party protest march, meanwhile, was held at Parbhani where leaders demanded swift investigation of the case without any political pressure.

Some leaders from Opposition and ruling parties demanded resignation of Dhananjay Munde, alleging that his aide Karad was linked to the murder case too.

"The accused in the extortion and murder cases are the same people because extortion was the prime motive. I request the chief minister to order registration of a murder case against them," Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange said while addressing the gathering.

"Future attacks on our community will be responded to in the same coin," he warned.

The murder case has acquired a caste conflict angle as Deshmukh was a Maratha, while most of the accused are Vanjari, a dominant community in the Beed region. 

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)