Eight days after the murder of a 24-year-old software engineer Mohsin Shaikh, Pune police has booked the founder of Hindu Rashtra Sena, Dhananjay Desai, for the crime. Desai, 34, was charged with criminal conspiracy for the murder of Shaikh, and was named as an accused in the case on Tuesday.
Desai has been charged under Section 120B of the IPC which pertains to criminal conspiracy, read with Section 302, a charge for murder.
Desai is already in judicial custody for distributing offensive pamphlets. He will be produced in court on Wednesday. “We have booked Desai for criminal conspiracy. All the accused in the case of Mohsin Shaikh’s murder are members of the HRS. They could not have acted without his knowledge,” Pune Joint commissioner of police Sanjeev Kumar stated.
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Twenty other members of the HRS have been arrested in the case so far and have been remanded to police custody till the 12th.
Mohsin Shaikh was allegedly beaten to death by the members of the HRS on June 1. In what is being described as a case of hate crime, police have said that Shaikh was targeted because he “looked Muslim,” as he was wearing a skull cap and had a beard. The incident was a fallout of violent protests in the city over derogatory photographs of Maratha King Shivaji and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on the social networking site, Facebook.