Cops cuff seven men for various offences

Pune: The Hadapsar police arrested seven persons on Wednesday for their involvement in different offences. One of them turned out to be a man ‘wanted’ in a murder case since last year.

Another was arrested for violating an externment order. The remaining five were held for participating in an illegal procession in which Hindu Rastra Sena president Dhananjay Desai was taken from the Yerawada jail to various parts of the city after his release on bail in the Mohsin Shaikh murder case.

The suspects were all on their way to Tuljapur, a pilgrim town in Osmanabad. They were taken into custody when they halted for lunch at a restaurant in Uruli Kanchan, near Pune.

The suspects have been identified as Sandeep, alias Sonya Sopan Dangmali (29), Akash Kakade (28), Vishal Sutrave (25), Vaijnath Bhagat (35), Sanchit Kale (24), Vinayak Belsare (24) and Prakash Sathe (24). They are residents of Gondhalenagar, Sasanenagar, Kalepadal, Manjri and Loni Kalbhor.

Senior inspector Sunil Tambe, the in-charge of Hadapsar police station, said, “The questioning of the suspects revealed that Dangmali, a member of a right-wing outfit, was the mastermind behind the murder of Sujit Verma, a criminal on record. Verma was killed by a group of men on January 28, 2018, over the issue of gaining supremacy in Gondhalenagar, in Hadapsar. Dangmali was wanted in that murder case, however, he kept changing his hideouts and managed to avoid arrest till now.”

“Kakade and the five others are also members of the outfit. Kakade was arrested on the charges of violating an externment order under the the Maharashtra Police Act. The remaining five were held for participating in an illegal procession. We have transferred the custody of these five suspects to the Yerawada police for action,” Tambe added.