Shinde faction dy shakha pramukh murdered, three arrested

The three accused, one of whom had borrowed ₹300,000 from the Sena office-bearer, who was a deputy at the party’s Vasant Vihar shakha, also tried to mislead the police by throwing his mobile phone into a Gujarat-bound truck

Thane: The Chitalsar police on Thursday arrested three youngsters for brutally killing a 25-year-old deputy shakha pramukh of the Eknath Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena (BSS). The trio, after killing him on Tuesday night, had attempted to burn the body in a forested area of Thane’s Konkanipada.

The police team, along with forensic experts, then went to the spot in the Konkanipada jungle area where they recovered a half-burnt body. Another team laid a trap to nab the other two accused, and managed to do so by Wednesday night from Thane. The three accused were identified as Gurunath Jadhav, 31, Karan Savra, 27 and Prashant Jabbar 21. (HT PHOTO)

The three accused, one of whom had borrowed ₹300,000 from the Sena office-bearer, who was a deputy at the party’s Vasant Vihar shakha, also tried to mislead the police by throwing his mobile phone into a Gujarat-bound truck.

The deceased, Akshay Thube, was a bank employee. On August 29, he left home in the evening, telling his family that he was meeting friends and would be back after that. When he failed to return that night, his father Kondibhau Thube went to Chitalsar police station the next morning and filed a missing complaint.

After the investigating team traced Thube’s phone location to Gujarat, they alerted the Palghar and Gujarat police, as well as all their sources near Ghodbunder Road, to look for Thube.

On Wednesday morning, the police received a tip from their informants about a man, subsequently identified as Prashant Jabbar, 21, who was trying to sell a gold chain and ring in the jewellery market. “We called him to the police station and began interrogating him on Wednesday afternoon,” said a police officer. “He didn’t seem to be from a well-off background and that’s why we questioned him about where he got the valuables.”

During the questioning, the man suddenly revealed that he and two of his friends had killed a man and he had taken the chain and ring off the corpse. “He revealed Thube’s name,” said the officer. “To reverify the claim, we called Thube’s parents and they confirmed that the gold chain belonged to their son.” The parents, who were waiting for their young son to come back for Raksha Bandhan, were shattered when they learnt of his murder.

The police team, along with forensic experts, then went to the spot in the Konkanipada jungle area where they recovered a half-burnt body. Another team laid a trap to nab the other two accused, and managed to do so by Wednesday night from Thane. The three accused were identified as Gurunath Jadhav, 31, Karan Savra, 27 and Prashant Jabbar 21.

“Jadhav had borrowed around ₹300,000 from the deceased and had mortgaged his Konkanipada house to him,” said a police officer. “Thube kept asking him for his money back, because of which Jadhav hatched the plan to kill him with the help of his two friends. On August 29, he called Thube to his Konkanipada house in the night to collect the cheque.”

Girish Gode, senior police inspector of Chitalsar police station, said that the accused had planned the murder in advance and brought a weapon along as well as kerosene to burn the body. “They have hidden the murder weapon and Thube’s bike,” he said. “We are in the process of tracing them.”

Gode said that after Thube went to Jadhav’s house, the trio repeatedly attacked him with a koyta or sickle. Later, they took the body to the forested area of Konkanipada and tried to burn it. “Our team successfully solved the case within a day even though the accused did several things to throw us off track,” said Gode.

Gurunath Jadhav is an employee of a small company and lives with his mother and pregnant wife in Konkanipada. On Tuesday night, the night of the murder, the women were not at home.