Beed sarpanch murder case: Police arrests two of 3 absconding accused

Mumbai: In a major breakthrough, police has arrested two of three absconding accused involved in the gruesome murder of Santosh Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massjog village of Kaij tehsil of Beed district of Maharashtra.

Deshmukh (45), a three-time Sarpanch, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered on 9 December.

Earlier, four accused were arrested by the Beed police - Vishnu Chate, Jairam Chate, Mahesh Kedar and Pratik Ghule.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Investigation Department (CID), on Saturday, arrested two more accused in the case - Sudarshan Ghule and Sudhir Sangle - taking the total arrests to six.

The seventh accused Krushna Andhale is still absconding.

The issue has snowballed into a political row as NCP minister and Parli MLA Dhananjay Munde’s close aide Walmik Karad has been arrested in connection with an alleged Rs 2 crore extortion case linked to the murder.

The government has announced three probes - by the Crime Investigation Department (CID), a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe and a judicial inquiry.

The political parties and locals are demanding the arrest of Karad in the murder case.

Karad had surrendered before the CID headquarters in Pune earlier this week.

The sarpanch was murdered as he attempted to stop an extortion bid from an energy firm involved in wind mill projects in Parli.