Two more held in Maharashtra sarpanch murder case

MUMBAI: Two more people accused in the murder of Santosh Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massajog in Maharashtra's Beed district, have been arrested from Pune, leaving only one of the seven men with allegedly direct involvement in the killing to be traced.

Deshmukh was abducted and murdered on December 9, days after he tried to stop an alleged extortion bid on a company that has a wind turbine at Massajog. One of the people accused in the alleged extortion bid is an aide of Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, triggering a political slugfest over the death of the sarpanch.

Following the arrest of Sudarshan Ghule and Sudhir Sangale, Deshmukh's family sought to know if someone was giving shelter to the accused in Pune. Valmik Karad, the Munde aide accused in the extortion case, had also earlier surrendered in Pune, a district where the NCP has considerable clout.


"Every accused (in the case) is being arrested from Pune. Who in Pune is protecting them? If these are all being arrested from Pune then someone has been protecting them," said the murdered sarpanch's brother, Dhananjay.