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As BJP’s Suresh Dhas alleges Walmik Karad owns 5 flats, 7 shops in Pune, Congress and AAP seek probe

Walmik Karad has been booked for allegedly demanding Rs 2 crore from a windmill company linked to the Santosh Deshmukh murder case.

suresh dhas, maharashtra bjp, Walmik Karad, beed murder case, pune,Speaking in Paithan on Thursday, Dhas (right) alleged Karad (left) “owns property worth crore in Pune”.

After BJP MLA Suresh Dhas alleged that Walmik Karad, who is under arrest in a case linked to the murder of a sarpanch in Beed district, owns five flats and seven shops in Pune, the Maharashtra Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party asked the Pune police, CID and the Pune Municipal Corporation to immediately take action into the matter.

Santosh Deshmukh, 45, a sarpanch of Massajog village in Kaiz tehsil, was abducted and murdered on December 9. Deshmukh’s family claimed that he was killed because he had opposed extortion attempts by local strongmen with links to the NCP.

While Karad has not been named in the murder case, he has been booked for allegedly demanding Rs 2 crore from the staffer of a windmill company linked to the case. The Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department, which is probing the Beed murder case, has also pressed charges related to extortion against Karad and frozen his bank accounts, and is likely to seize his property worth several crores. He surrendered at the CID headquarters in Pune.

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“This is the first time it has been openly revealed that the accused in the extortion case has flats and shops. The police should immediately step in and seize the flats and shops and conduct a probe as to how Karad could make such big purchases and his sources of income,” said Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Gopal Tiwari.

AAP Pune unit chief Mukund Kirdat also demanded a “thorough investigation” to find out how Karad bought the flats and shops. “We believe that he has not only indulged in extortion in Beed but could be involved in a bigger racket in Pune as well. And all this he seems to have managed through his connections at higher levels. Karad is not alone there could be many more involved in this murky saga,” said Kirdat.

Speaking in Paithan on Thursday, Dhas alleged Karad “owns property worth crore in Pune”. “He owns five flats worth Rs 75 crore besides seven shops worth Rs 40 crore… One of the flats is in the name of Vishnu Chate who has been arrested in the Santosh Deshmukh murder case”.

Dhas also alleged that Karad owns 150 acre of land in Barshi, Majalgaon and Dighol. “If the Irani gang of Parli is arrested, all the skeletons will tumble out of their closet,” he said.

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The Congress said the police should also find out the details behind the deals relating to the shops and flats. “His bank accounts should be inspected. The property registration officials who registered the flats and shops should also be questioned. It is likely that he must have greased many palms. It should also be found out whether the owners were threatened…The PMC should look at the legality angle of the shops and the flats.”

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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