PUNE: A former elected member of the Pune Cantonment Board was arrested on Wednesday night from Rajasthan-Gujarat border in connection with an alleged plot to murder a rival by hiring contract killers.
The arrested man, Vivek Mahadeo Yadav (38), represented BJP in the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB)’s elected body, dissolved over six months ago. Sub-inspector Prabhakar Kapure of the Kondhwa police on Thursday said, “Yadav admitted to his involvement in the crime. He has seven cases registered against him.”
A magistrate at the Pune Cantonment court on Thursday remanded him in police custody till July 26 after assistant public prosecutors Jyoti Waghmare and Santosh Patale argued that his custodial interrogation was essential to trace the source of firearms and identify the man he sent to deliver firearms to arrested criminals on records -- Rajan Rajmani (38) and Ibrahim alias Hussain Yakub Shaikh (27) -- to execute the plan to kill Vishnu Gawli alias Babliya.
Gawli, a criminal on police records, is among the 12 people arrested and charged with attempt to kill Yadav in 2016.
The public prosecutors submitted that the police had recovered Yadav’s cellphone, but he had concealed the SIM card and deleted the number of Gawli from the call details record. The defence lawyer opposed the prosecution’s plea, claiming that Yadav had no role in the crime.
Yadav was on the run since the police arrested Rajmani and Shaikh (27) on July 14 and recovered three country-made pistols and as many magazines and bullets from them. “The duo told the police that Yadav had given them Rs3 lakh for eliminating Gawli, accused of firing at Yadav from a country-made pistol during a Ganapati immersion procession near Qureshi Masjid in Camp in 2016. The bullet pierced through Yadav’s jaws and grazed the head of Sanjay Yadav, a passer-by,” said Kapure.
Gawli was also an accused in the murder of Rajendra Maratkar, then vice-president of the Khadki Cantonment Board, the police said.
Kapure said, “Yadav was on the run after his name cropped up in the investigation related to Rajmani and Shaikh’s arrest. We conducted a technical (cellphone location) investigation and traced Yadav to Gujarat. He was in the process of crossing over to Rajasthan, but we tipped off the police there and got the border sealed. The police stopped Yadav’s car and intercepted him on Tuesday night. We took him into custody on Wednesday night and brought him to Pune.”
