In yet another turn in the triple murder of a Dalit family in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district, a local court on Monday directed the bank account of the Jadhav family to be sealed.
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The district and sessions court also directed the police custody of one of the accused, Dilip Jadhav, to be extended till January 1, 2015.
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The court has directed that the ‘goodwill cash’ flowing into the Jadhavs’ bank account in the form of sympathy as well as legal aid be probed by the police. The amount given by the State, individual politicians and organizations in a spirit of commiseration has accreted in excess of Rs.1 crore.
“The court wants details of the usage of this money probed as it may yield important clues towards strengthening the investigation’s conclusions,” said Inspector General of Police (Nashik Range), Pravin Salunkhe, speaking to The Hindu.
The protracted, three-month investigation into the high-profile crime ended with a sensational denouement after the district police nabbed the complainant, Prashant Jadhav, in connection with killings, while stating that the crime was not caste-motivated.
The police later apprehended Prashant’s brother, Ashok and his father, Dilip Jadhav, in connection with the crime which they believe was a family dispute.
The money was specifically given to help Sanjay’s traumatized parents, Jagannath (75) and Sakharbai (70), to cope with the crisis. Along with several other activists, the parents refuse to believe the police’s version of events and had staged a rally earlier this month in Mumbai to register strong protests.
According to them, the police have allegedly fabricated the sequence of events to deflect attention from the crime being a caste-atrocity. Their son, Dilip and their grandchildren, Ashok and Prashant, have been falsely taken into custody, they allege.
It was Prashant who had filed the first information report (FIR) on October 22 soon after the murder of his uncle, Sanjay Jadhav (42), his aunt Jayashree (38) and his cousin, the teenaged Sunil (19), came to light. Dilip Jadhav is the deceased Sanjay’s older brother.
The dismembered bodies of Sanjay and Jayashree were found strewn on their farm plot by their relatives the village of Javkhede-Khalasa in Pathardi Taluk. The discovery of Sunil’s decapitated body, which was found scattered along with other body parts, led to an upsurge of popular anger across the State, with Dalit groups and several prominent activists alleging the murders to be a clear example of an ‘honour killing.’