Sharad Mohol was deliberately shot in the view of CCTV cam to spread terror: Pune Police

The sequence of the attack on Mohol was captured on a CCTV camera installed on a house and the video of the attack was widely circulated on social media.

Mohol, who allegedly led a criminal gang, which has been active in Pune for several years, was shot dead at point blank range in Sutardara area of Pune on January 5.

Police have till now arrested eight persons in the case, who are currently in police custody.

Six of the accused including the alleged shooters were produced before the court on Wednesday, as the police custody granted to them immediately after their arrest, ended.

The Crime Branch of Pune City Police had on Tuesday taken over the investigation of the case from Kothrud police station and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sunil Tambe was designated as the investigation officer.

The court has extended the police custody of the six accused by seven days till January 16.

The six accused have been identified as Sahil alias Munna Santosh Polekar (20), Namdev Mahipati Kangude 25), Amit alias Amar Maruti Kangude (24), Chandrakant Shahu Shelke (22), Vinayak Santosh Gavhankar (20) and Vitthal Kisan Gandhle (34).

The two other accused, both of whom are lawyers, will be produced before the court on Thursday.

While seeking the extension to the police custody of six accused, ACP Tambe told the court, “The investigation has revealed that this offense was deliberately committed in view of a CCTV camera to instill terror among the citizens. The scope of this offence goes much beyond these eight arrested accused. We want to find out who is the mastermind behind this. The previous investigation officer has submitted to the court that we are invoking the IPC section 120B pertaining to the criminal conspiracy. We want to find all those who were part of this conspiracy or helped in hatching it.”

ACP Tambe further said, “Prior to committing this offence, the accused in the case have held firearm shooting practice at two or three places in Mulshi taluka. We want to find the locations where this practice was done, find out if there were any witnesses to it and whether they are involved in the conspiracy. We want to trace the people who were involved in the sale of the weapons that have been seized from the accused. We have also sought bank statements of the accused.”

Our probe suggests that there was a major financial transaction in connection to the crime. Around the time of the crime, a person has given a SIM card to the suspects. We have come across some calls made from the SIM card. We want to trace this person and find out his involvement in the crime,” he added.

Public Prosecutor in the case, Neelam Ithape Yadav told the court, “This was a premeditated criminal conspiracy. As part of the probe, empty casings of the bullets have been seized and CCTV footage have been obtained from multiple locations. Vehicles and firearms used in the offence have been seized. Based on the number of the  magazines that have been recovered, it seems that there are more firearms linked to the suspects that need to be seized. The entire chain of events linked to this crime is being established.”

Opposing the prosecution’s plea, advocate Ketan Kadam, representing the six accused, said, “The police have already done recoveries related to the crime. This case is getting a lot of traction in the media and on social media. Considering the age of the accused, the more time they spend in police custody, the public perception will go against them. All the evidence in this case is technical in nature and custody of the accused is not required for the probe of technical evidence.”