A court in Maharashtra’s Beed district on Wednesday sent Valmik Karad, accused in an extortion case related to the murder of sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, to 14-day judicial custody.
After the expiry of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) custody period, Karad was produced before the special court for Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) cases through digital medium. The court sent Karad to judicial custody for 14 days.
Karad, an aide of Maharashtra minister Dhananjay Munde, was booked under the stringent MCOCA on January 14 and sent to 14-day judicial custody. After this the police approached the special MCOCA court for his custody.
On January 15, the court had sent him to the custody of CID’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) till January 22. This special investigation team of CID is investigating the case.
Santosh Deshmukh, sarpanch of Masajog village in Beed district, was abducted, tortured and killed on December 9. Initial investigations indicate that Deshmukh had tried to resist an extortion attack targeting an energy company operating a windmill project in the area.
Karad was arrested in a murder-related extortion case after he surrendered before police in Pune on December 31.
Maharashtra Police’s SIT told a Beed court last week that Sarpanch Deshmukh was murdered because he was suspected of being an obstacle to an extortion plot of Rs 2 crore from an energy company and that Valmik was a resident at the time of the crime. Karad was in contact with the killers.
