From Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh's murder to Dhananjay Munde's resignation: A timeline of events

Mumbai: NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, who was facing the heat over the murder of sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, on Tuesday tendered his resignation as the Maharashtra cabinet minister. His resignation came days after his close aide Walmik Karad was named as the mastermind in the Beed sarpanch murder case.

Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed, was abducted, tortured and murdered on December 9 last year allegedly for attempting to stop an extortion bid targeting an energy company in the district.

We take a look at the timeline of events unfolded after the murder of the sarpanch.

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• 6 December: Sudarshan Ghule and some others beat up Ashok Sonavane, a security personnel and a native of Massajog at Avaada Energy. Sonavane called Santosh Deshmukh, who rushed to the spot and there was a heated exchange of arguments as he resisted the extortion bid.

• 9 December: Massajog Sapranch Santosh Deshmukh was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Kej tehsil of Beed district for resisting Walmik Karad-led extortion racket.

• 10 December: Beed residents stage rasta-roko against the murder.

• 11 December: Santosh Deshmukh’s brother Dhananjay Deshmukh pleads for justice.

• 12 December: Santosh Deshmukh’s wife Ashwini Deshmukh, their daughter Vaibhavi and son Viraj requests government to take action.

• 19 December: Post-mortem reports point out that Santosh Deshmukh was beaten to death.

• 21 December: Deputy CM Ajit Pawar meets Deshmukh family in Beed.

• 28 December: Cutting across party lines, politicians, social activists and community leaders, staged a massive march-cum-morcha and demanded the resignation of Dhananjay Munde. NCP (SP) General Secretary and Mumbra-Kalwa MLA Dr Jitendra Awhad, NCP (SP) Beed MP Bajrang Sonawane, BJP Ashthi MLA Suresh Dhas, NCP (SP) Beed MLA Sandeep Kshirsagar, BJP Ausa MLA Abhimanyu Pawar, political activist Dr Jyoti Mete too weere present in the rally.

• 31 December: Walmik Karad surrendered before the State-CID office in Pune, taken to Beed under high security arrangements.

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• 2 January: "Why should I resign…I am in no way directly or indirectly involved, the police is probing", says Dhananjay Munde.

• 6 January: NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar writes to CM Devendra Fadnavis on the burning issue.

• 7 January: Deshmukh family meets CM Devendra Fadnavis, who assures free and fair probe .

• 14 January: SIT formed to probe Santosh Deshmukh murder cases and extortion racket.

• 26 February: Ujjwal Nikam named Special Public Prosecutor.

• 28 February: State-CID files chargesheet in Santosh Deshmukh murder case, names Walmik Karad as accused no. 1.

• 3 March: CM Devendra Fadnavis asks Dhananjay Munde to resign in presence of Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare.

• 4 March: Dhananjay Munde resigns as minister.