Within a fortnight after two Shiv Sena activists were shot dead in Ahmednagar district, another Sena office bearer was on Friday found brutally murdered in a jungle near the powerloom town of Bhiwandi in Thane district of Maharashtra’s coastal Konkan region.
The Bhiwandi Police recovered the body of 45-year-old Shailesh Nimase, deputy chief of Shiv Sena’s Shahapur taluka unit, in a burnt condition, in a jungle near Devachol village in Bhiwandi town, in the small hours of Friday.
Nimase’s burnt body has been sent to the State-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai for a post mortem.
Police suspected that after murdering Nimase, the assailants had set his body on fire so as to ensure that the body did not get recognised during the investigations.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Nimase had received a call from an unidentified person shortly before Thursday midnight.
“After he received the call, Nimase stepped out of his house and drove out somewhere in his Hyundai Sonata. On early Friday, Nimase’s body was found in a burnt condition in a jungle located in the vicinity of Devachol village. His car was located at 5 km distance of the crime site,” a senior police officer said.
Till Friday evening, police had not made any arrests in connection with Nimase’s murder.
Condemning the incident, Shiv Sena’s Thane district (rural) chief Prakash Patil said: “Nimase’s is a premeditated murder. We demand that the culprits behind the murder be brought to book immediately”.
It may be recalled that on April 7, two Sena activists Sanjay Kotkar (35) and Vasant Thube (40) were shot dead by a two motor-bike riding assailants at Shahunagar locality of Kedgaon near Ahmednagar towns, hours after the result of a civic AMC by-poll result was announced.
Following the murder, the police arrested NCP MlA Sangram Jagtap (33), Balasaheb Kotkar (59), Sandeep Gunjal (28), and Bhanudas Kotkar (44) for the murder of two local Sena leaders.
In a fallout of NCP MlA’s murder, ruling BJP MlA Shivaji Kardile had — along with former MlA Dadabhai Kalamkar and former Mayor Abhishek Kalamkar — led a group of “250 to 300” political activists to the office of Ahmednagar district police superintendent’s office and ransacked the place.
Kardile is the father-in-law of NCP MlA Jagtap who is among four persons booked for the murder of the two Shiv Sena functionaries.