Kadi murder: Cops suspect insider's job

AHMEDABAD: The gruesome murder of Rakesh Patel, a chemical trader and the brother of VHP leader Ashwin Patel, is turning out to be a classic whodunit for the city cops. Rakesh was found dead in a badly burnt car on Tuesday.
Apart from the fact that this could be the handiwork of an insider, the cops have been able to make little headway in the case. According to Kadi police station officials, primary investigation has got nowhere close to the motive of the crime.
"We have added IPC section 302 in the case. This has turned it into a murder probe. More investigation will be done once we get the forensic report and can talk to his family members, who are in grief at the moment," said a senior official at Kadi police station.
For the investigators, the focal point of probe is to find how the murder was committed. When the officials found the car near Vamaj village, it was charred and the burnt body of a man was found on the backseat in a sitting posture. Local residents were questioned about the car and they said only two cars passed through the road on that evening.
"Patel was near Naroda when he last called his family members. After that, his phone was switched off. A little later, his body was found near Vamaj. The entire incident may not have taken more than two hours. Our present theory is that he was killed, his body was taken to the spot where it was found and then the car was also torched so as to wipe out any evidence," said the official.
A penal post-mortem did not fetch anything on Wednesday as the body was charred. However, Ashwin Patel maintains that Rakesh had no enemy and he suspects none.
BOX
Was it Rakesh Patel, or somebody else, whose body was found near Vamaj on Tuesday? Was he murdered or was it a fire accident that gutted his car and him? What was he doing at Kadi when he was near Naroda just an hour ago? These are the questions that are boggling the investigators probing the murder of Rakesh Patel.