NAGPUR: A 30-year-old Gram Panchayat member and BJP leader was brutally murdered on Tuesday morning in Saoner tehsil, allegedly by individuals linked to the land mafia. The victim, Atul Patil, was stabbed to death at Pipla, which falls under the jurisdiction of Khaparkheda police station in the district.
Patil, a vocal whistleblower who had exposed several land scams, had filed multiple complaints against illegal land dealings, including schemes orchestrated by village sarpanch Vishnu Kokadde, a Congress leader and a close associate of former Maharashtra minister Sunil Kedar.
The murder has sparked outrage and raised political temperature in the region, especially as the Zilla Parishad (ZP) elections are near.
The police have arrested two suspects in connection with the murder - Himanshu Kumbhalkar, 19, who is the prime accused, and Vishnu Kokadde, 41, who had previously faced charges of forgery and cheating in a ZP land allotment scam exposed by Patil.
According to police sources, Patil had used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to uncover fake documents used to develop unauthorised layouts. His complaints led to the registration of cases against Kokadde, a Gram Panchayat secretary, and others. It is alleged that Kokadde and his wife, former Nagpur Zilla Parishad president Muktabai Kokardde, misused their political influence to issue fraudulent No Objection Certificates (NOCs) and earn crores of rupees through illegal land deals.
Senior Inspector Arvind Katlam of...
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