NAGPUR: A 35-year-old woman has been arrested by the Nagpur rural police on charges that she hired a contract killer to eliminate her father after he assaulted her mother for objecting to his extra-marital affair, police said.
Dilip Rajeshwar Sontakke (60), who was killed by three masked men at their petrol pump in Bhiwapur on the Nagpur-Nagbhid highway on May 17, also had been pressuring his wife to transfer the petrol station, their farm and house in his name.
Police said his daughter, Priya, hired the assailants for ₹5 lakh.
Nagpur (Rural) superintendent of police Vishal Anand said Priya, who has allegedly confessed to her role in the murder, was produced before a local court on Wednesday and remanded in police custody for two days.
Anand said the three assailants, Sheikh Afroz alias Imran Hanif, Mohammad Wasim Lal Mohammad and Zubair Khan, were caught within hours of the murder. During interrogation, they told the police that Priya engaged them.
Sontakke was counting the money at the petrol station about 75km from Nagpur city on May 17 along with his employee Rajeshwar Nanhe when the three accused barged into the station. They attacked Sontakke and Rajeshwar Nanhe who tried to protect his employer. By the time they were done, police said Sontakke was stabbed 15 times. They also looted ₹1.34 lakh in cash from the station.
{{/usCountry}}Sontakke was counting the money at the petrol station about 75km from Nagpur city on May 17 along with his employee Rajeshwar Nanhe when the three accused barged into the station. They attacked Sontakke and Rajeshwar Nanhe who tried to protect his employer. By the time they were done, police said Sontakke was stabbed 15 times. They also looted ₹1.34 lakh in cash from the station.
{{/usCountry}}According to the police, Priya wanted him dead because he had been torturing her mother and the rest of the family for opposing his extramarital relationship with a woman in Nagpur.
Sontakke initially ill-treated his wife but when she questioned him about his extra-marital relationship, it escalated into physical abuse. Police said Priya appeared to have decided to do something after Sontakke turned violent and assaulted Priya and her mother on May 2. She approached Sheikh Afroz Sheikh Hanif (33), a resident of Bada Tajbagh, Nagpur. Afroz enlisted his accomplices, Wasim Lal Mohd (29), a resident of Kharbi and a local criminal Zubair Khan.
Police said they are trying to establish who put Priya in touch with the prime accused, Afroz.
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