Pune: The husband of the defeated woman candidate in the gram panchayat election in Ambegaon Khurd, killed the husband of the victorious candidate out of vengeance, police said. The man, Balasaheb Vanashiv succumbed on March 24.
The newly-elected sarpanch, Meenakshi Vanashiv’s husband, Balasaheb had gone for a walk with his friend Prakash Tilekar on January 13. While the duo was on the service road of the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway, a white car hit him and sped away. A gravely injured Balasaheb was rushed to hospital, where he died after a long struggle on March 24.
The sarpanch, Meenakshi, had filed a First Information Report with police. They suspected Avinash Kamble to be the prime accused. Police checked the CCTV footage of the area during their investigation and picked up Kamble and his accomplice, Nitish Thopte, who later confessed to the crime.
Meenakshi had defeated Reshma Kamble, the wife of Avinash Kamble, in the sarpanch election. Angered by the defeat, Kamble allegedly decided to teach her a lesson by running over her husband and cover up the crime as an accident. Bharati Vidyapeeth police have registered a case of murder.
