Singed hair lands ‘friend’ who killed bank manager in police net

According to police, the accused, who was accompanying the bank manager in his vehicle, “instantly” decided to murder his “friend” after finding out about the money in the car.

“Since the receiving branch was making several phone calls to Patil about his location, Patel had understood that he was carrying a huge quantity of cash in the vehicle. He appears to have immediately decided to murder him and waited until it was dark… Around 7.30pm, when they stopped for a break at a deserted road, Patel turned up behind Patil and shot him in the head, killing him instantly,” Mahisagar Superintendent of Police Jaydeepsinh Jadeja told The Indian Express.

Jadeja added that the accused dumped the body and the weapon — an unlicensed firearm acquired from Madhya Pradesh — at the spot and drove away with Patil’s SUV and the cash to a spot about 17 kilometres away where he had parked his two-wheeler earlier in the day. “He then emptied the cash from the metal box in Patil’s car into a bag and rode to his village in Dahod on his two-wheeler. From there, he returned with his four-wheeler (SUV) to the spot where he had left Patil’s vehicle… He doused it with petrol and set it on fire, he has admitted. As the fire bellowed, his hair was singed and it was a big give away when we picked him up and he admitted to his crime,” Jadeja added.

Patel told the police that he had known Patil since a few years when the latter was posted as a branch manager in the Dahod village where the parents of the accused are teachers at a local school.

“The son of the deceased was also tracking the location of the vehicle on a mobile application of the car maker Tuesday as the receiving bank was anxious that Patil had not turned up with the cash and was unreachable. Patil’s son had also called up the accused to seek his help in finding out why the vehicle was stationary at the spot on the Santrampur-Dahod road… The accused was actually setting fire to the vehicle then. He tried to misguide the police,” Jadeja added.

Police said that Patel, who has been booked for loot with murder as well as destruction of evidence, does not have a history of crime but had acquired the firearm out of “fancy” as he has claimed.