Caught on camera: Man sitting at Pune eatery shot, hacked to death with sickles

A property dealer with several criminal cases was shot and the attacked with sickles while he was sitting at a restaurant with three others in Pune.

A 31-year-old man was attacked and then hacked to death while he was inside an eatery in Pune on Saturday night. The brutal killing has been caught on the CCTV camera inside Hotel Jagadamba near Indapur on the Pune-Solapur Highway. The deceased was identified as Avinash Dhanve with multiple criminal cases against him and hence his murder was likely to be a fallout of gangwar, police said. "We have identified eight assailants through the CCTV footage and teams have been mobilised to apprehend them," a senior official from Pune rural police said, as quoted by PTI. Dhanve was a property dealer.

Two men fired at Dhanve and then four people with sickles hacked him to death.

In the CCTV footage, two attackers could be seen coming where the deceased was sitting with three others. Dhanve seemed to be on his phone when the attackers approached him from behind. As the two took out their guns and started firing, the other three on the table got startled and left their seats. The attackers did not chase the others while more joined in attacking Dhanve. Six people entered the eatery with sickles and machetes in their hands with which they hacked Dhanve to death. Other guests of the eatery could be seen rushing out and the attackers too fled the scene while Dhanve's body remained on the ground.

Police said the incident took place around 8pm and Dhanve was a known criminal and his murder was a gang rivalry. "The victim dies on the spot. The police have cracked the case and the accused will be behind bars soon," Pune Rural SP Pankaj Deshmukh said.