Pune (Maharashtra): Hours after he posted a video statement and ‘surrendered’, fugitive Walmik Karad — the prime suspect in the killing of Massajog Sarpanch Santosh Pandit Deshmukh on December 9 — was whisked off by a police team to Beed’s Kej village police station for further investigations, a top official said here on Tuesday evening.
State Crime Investigation Department (CID) Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) of Police, Sarang Awhad, told media persons that Karad came forward voluntarily and gave himself up at the Pune CID Office.
He arrived in a plush car owned by an activist of the ruling MahaYuti ally Nationalist Congress Party, alighted with folded hands and was virtually mobbed for bytes by the paparazzi assembled there, but was quickly surrounded by CID sleuths and steered inside.
There Karad was questioned for a few hours by a team of officials and around 4 p.m., a police team quietly bundled him into a van and drove off to Beed, catching the huge media contingent outside the CID office unawares.
Karad — a close aide of Maharashtra Food & Civil Supplies Minister Dhananjay P. Munde — is likely to be produced before a local magistrate for a night remand hearing in Kej, officials indicated.
After the abduction, brutal torture and broad daylight murder of Sarpanch Deshmukh, Karad’s name cropped up and Munde’s name followed soon, escalating into a massive political furore in the state.
Following uproar both in the Legislature and outside, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT), and on Tuesday (December 31), post-surrender he called up the Deshmukh family and reiterated that justice would be done in the case.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (SP)-Shiv Sena (UBT), plus Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, Shivba Sanghatana and others have launched a strong attack on the MahaYuti regime, blamed it for failure to arrest Karad for nearly three weeks, till he surrendered himself on Tuesday.
NCP (SP) Working President Supriya Sule and General Secretary Dr Jitendra Awhad sharply asked “What was the police and CID doing till he (Karad) gave himself up” and “How did the cops have no inkling of Karad who was hiding in Pune for past three days”.
Congress’ Atul Londhe said the police were hampered by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ‘interference’, demanded Fadnavis’ resignation and sought a court-monitored probe into the Sarpanch case, while Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Kishore Tiwari contended that the entire ‘surrender drama’ is suspicious while seeking transparency in the investigations.
Though Karad has not been named in the Sarpanch case, he was booked in a Rs 2-crore extortion demand from a windmill company in Beed and assault on a security guard.
However, on December 11 — two days after Deshmukh’s killing — his name was tossed up and he went ‘missing’, but his phone records showed he was moving in Pune and Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh), as he became ‘wanted’ by the Maharashtra Police.
This afternoon, BJP MLA Suresh R. Dhas and NCP (SP) MLA Sandeep R. Kshirsagar — who were vociferous on their demands for Karad’s arrest called on Fadnavis, and later the grim CM said that “Goonda raj will not be allowed in the state and nobody involved in the Sarpanch murder would be spared.”
Karad, who is considered close to the Munde political clan of Beed, especially Dhananjay P. Munde hails from a poor family of Pangri village in Parli tehsil.
As a teenager, he came into contact with the late BJP stalwarts — former Union minister Gopinath P. Munde (father of Minister Pankaja G. Munde) and his brother Panditrao P. Munde (the father of Dhananjay P. Munde).
Karad was entrusted with setting up the first BJP youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in Parli under the tutelage of Panditrao P. Munde.
Moving up, in 2001, Karad was elected as a corporator of Parli Municipal Council and served as a Deputy Mayor, while his clout grew with the Mundes and in local politics.
Over the years, Karad has built up an unenviable reputation with over a dozen big and small criminal cases lodged against him, but he vehemently denied the latest extortion case in his video statement this morning.
He also contended he was being framed in the extortion case — which is now being linked with the Beed Sarpanch murder case — but expressed readiness to cooperate with the investigators and accept any punishment.
(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: qnajmi@gmail.com)
(IANS)
