Eight held for murder of private firm’s manager

PUNE: Eight persons, including three workers of a private company, were arrested on Sunday for bludgeoning the firm’s production manager to death in the early hours of March 22 at

Perane Phata

near Shikrapur on Pune-Ahmednagar highway.

The suspects had assaulted the production manager, Aslam Kothali (38), with iron rods. Kothali succumbed to severe injuries on March 23 after lodging a complaint with the Lonikand police against five assailants.

Inspector

Sarjerao Patil

of the Lonikand police said the probe was started after registering a case of murder. “We found that Kothali and some workers of the company had lodged complaints against each other with the Shikrapur police,” he said.

During the probe the police found that three workers — Dinesh Salunkhe, Raju Salve and

Venkat Bose

— had entered into a brawl with Kothali a few days ago. “We took them into custody for questioning,” Patil said.

During the sustained questioning, the trio admitted that they had hatched the plot to threaten Kothali because he allegedly harassed them. “The trio contacted five men — Vishal Jamdar, Akshay Ovhal, Ganesh Shinde, Sidhant Mahangade and

Somnath Netke

— and asked them to beat up Kothali to teach him a lesson,” said an officer of the

Pune Rural

police.

When Kothali left the company premises in the early hours of March 22, one of the three workers alerted Jamdar. “When Kothali reached near Perane Phata, the five suspects attacked him with iron rods and fled,” the officer said. He said the police had arrested the five attackers, too. “All the eight suspects have been remanded in police custody till April 2,” he said.