Case to be tried in fast track court, says CM

Charge sheet links cases of extortion and murder; recordings of calls among accused included as evidence

- Nadeem Inamdar

PUNE: Food and civil supplies minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Dhananjay Munde's aide Walmik Karad was the mastermind behind the murder of Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, according to the charge sheet submitted by police in the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court in Beed.

Karad himself sought a ransom of 2 crore from the land acquisition officer of Avaada, a renewable energy company with presence in Beed. He plotted to murder Deshmukh after the sarpanch tried to block his associates' attempt at recovering the money, says the charge sheet submitted by the state criminal investigation department's special investigation team (CID-SIT).

It links the extortion case and the murder, which were registered as separate cases by Beed police and includes as evidence recordings of phone calls recovered from the accused and CCTV footage, certified by a government forensic laboratory.

Threat before murder Sudarshan Ghule, accused number two after Karad in the charge sheet, was part of the organised crime scene in Beed and neighbouring areas for over ten years and was named as accused in 11 criminal cases.

He is referred to as the 'gang leader' in the charge sheet, which states that if Santosh Deshmukh, sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed, was not eliminated, their business would crumble and they would be reduced to penury.