E-Paper
15 arrested for abetting suicide of 9 members of family in Sangli
A day after nine members of a family were found dead at Mhaisal in Sangli district of Maharashtra, the police on Tuesday arrested 15 people in connection with the abetment to suicide case registered in the matter
A day after nine members of a family were found dead at Mhaisal in Sangli district of Maharashtra, the police on Tuesday arrested 15 people in connection with the abetment to suicide case registered in the matter.
According to officers privy to developments, some of those arrested include moneylenders.
Those arrested, according to police officials, are among the 25 people booked on Monday evening under abetment to suicide charge for allegedly harassing the family over repayment of loans. The police have also invoked the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, against the accused.
The deceased belonged to a family of two brothers, aged 56 and 49, their mother, 72, their wives, aged 45 and 48, and their four children, the youngest of whom was 15 years old. The bodies were found in two different houses, about 1.5km apart, in the village over 350km from Mumbai.
A preliminary probe based on the suicide note recovered from two houses suggested the family reportedly had borrowings of about ₹1 crore, and was under sustained pressure from lenders.
“The family was finding it difficult to repay money taken from various people, which was also mentioned in the suicide notes. Due to sustained humiliation after the family failed to repay loans, they took the extreme step,” said Sangli Superintendent of Police (SP) Dikshit Gedam.
According to police officials, a preliminary probe suggests that the deceased had borrowed the money for business activities which are being probed further.
Gedam said while 13 persons were arrested, the process to apprehend two more person is underway.
Those arrested have been identified as Nandkumar Ramchandra Pawar (52), Rajendra Lakshman Bannne (50), Anil Lakshman Banne (35), Khanderao Shinde (37), Dr Tatyasaheb Chougule (50), Shailesh Ramchandra Dhumal (56), Prakash Krushna Pawar (45), Sanjay Irappa Bagadi (51), Anil Balu Borade (48), Pandurang Shripati Ghorpade (56), Shivaji Laxman Kore (65), Rekha Tatyasaheb Chougule (45), Vijay Vishnu Sutar (55), Dnyanu Bamane (48) and Shubhada Manohar Kamble (42). All of them are residents of Mhaisal.
“Our seven teams have been deployed in Sangli, Solpaur, Kolhapur and Karnataka in the search of remaining suspects,” said Gedam.
Another senior police officer confirmed that out of these 25 suspects booked, most are private money lenders operating illegally in the Sangli-Kolhapur belt.
“The arrested person Shailesh Ramchandra Dhumal along with his son Ashu Shailesh Dhumal who is at large, are criminals on record and booked several times in the past for private money lending cases in Mhaisal,” Gedam said.
Police further clarified that, there has been no complaint registered so far by other family members of deceased.