Sena member among those arrested

The Sangli district police on Friday arrested three people, including a local Shiv Sena leader, for the murder of a member of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Manohar Patil was found murdered in a field in Kavathe Mahakal tehsil late on Thursday. Authorities said Patil, a former chairperson of the Kavathe Mahakal Panchayat Samiti, was killed using sharp-edged weapons on a farm in Haroli village.

Within hours, the Kavathe Mahakal police took Sena leader Dinkar Balaso Patil and two others into custody and charged them with Manohar Patil’s murder. The police suspect a long-standing personal feud between Manohar Patil and Dinkar Patil to be the motive.

The Sena is in alliance with the NCP and the Congress in the State government.

This is the second such incident in Sangli district within a span of four days. Earlier this week, local NCP leader Anandrao Patil was hacked to death by two assailants near Khatav village in Palus tehsil, when he was returning from his farm on his motorcycle. A sarpanch of Katav village, he was the brother of Gajanan Patil, a personal assistant of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

The police have yet to nab his assailants.