Beed, Dec 27 (PTI) A court in Maharashtra’s Beed district on Friday extended till January 6 the police custody of NCP’s former tehsil chief Vishnu Chate in connection with the kidnap and murder of village head Santosh Deshmukh.
Chate is the fourth accused to be arrested in the murder case. He was produced before a court in Kej tehsil of Beed district after his police custody ended on Friday.
Those arrested earlier are Jairam Chate, Mahesh Kedar and Pratik Ghule.
Police are on the lookout for three others who have been named as wanted accused for kidnapping Santosh Deshmukh, sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed district, and brutally killing him on December 9.
Among those wanted in connection with a related extortion case is Beed-resident Walmik Karad, reportedly a close associate of NCP minister and Parli MLA Dhananjay Munde.
Karad’s wife has been questioned as part of efforts to nab him, the official said.
A CID team probing the murder case took custody of Vishnu Chate and interrogated him on Friday, the official said.
Vishnu Chate was held December 18 by the crime branch from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in the extortion case.
He allegedly demanded Rs 2 crore from an energy company that had installed a windmill in the district and threatened to stop their operations if their demands were not met, police said.
Deshmukh had tried to intervene and stop the extortion, leading to his abduction, torture and murder on December 9, following which an FIR was registered against seven persons, including Vishnu Chate.
The extortion case against Vishnu Chate, Walmik Karad and another person was registered on the complaint of the energy firm, police said.
Following Deshmukh’s murder, there were protests across Beed, especially after photographs of his body with injury marks were shared widely on social media.
While Deshmukh belongs to the Maratha community, Vishnu Chate, considered one of the masterminds, and two other accused are from the Vanjari community, part of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
This has given the horrific murder a caste angle, especially against the backdrop of the Maratha quota agitation and opposition by OBCs to it. PTI DC VT BNM
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