BHOPAL: More than 50 hours after the brutal killing of a middle-aged farmer and assault of his two daughters in Guna district, the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested the prime accused, an expelled BJP leader, Mahendra Nagar, and his two close relatives on Tuesday evening.
Mahendra Nagar, Harish, and Jitendra Nagar were arrested hours after the declaration of a bounty of Rs 10,000 each on the arrest of 13 absconding accused.
Confirming the three fresh arrests in the case, a senior MP police officer told TNIE that with the recent arrests, the total arrests now stand at 4, which also include Mahendra’s brother, Hukum Singh.
The 10 other accused on the run include Mahendra’s wife and two sons, besides two other female members of the extended family.
Meanwhile, the local administration also freed large tracts of forest land encroached by Nagar and aides in multiple villages of the Fatehgarh police station area of Guna district on Tuesday.
Earlier, on Monday evening, the ruling BJP’s Guna district unit chief, Dharmendra Sikarwar, had expelled Mahendra Nagar from the party following the Sunday afternoon’s barbaric incident.
On Sunday afternoon, horrific savagery had unfolded in Ganeshpura village of Guna district, when the BJP’s local booth committee chief, Mahendra Nagar, along with relatives and aides, brutally murdered middle-aged farmer Ramswaroop Dhakad over a dispute about six bighas of land in adjoining Baran district of Rajasthan.
Mahendra, along with aides, broke the limbs of the farmer before running an MUV and a tractor over him. To ensure that he didn’t survive, the gun-wielding men accompanying the BJP leader didn’t allow the villagers to take Ramswaroop to the hospital.
When Ramswaroop’s two teenage daughters (aged 16 and 17 years) tried to save their father, Mahendra and aides assaulted them, tore their clothes, and even opened fire while being seated over them to scare villagers away.
A critically wounded Ramswaroop died later at the Guna district hospital.
Mahendra Nagar already faces five criminal cases, including rape, loot, and forgery.
Not only had Mahendra Nagar encroached forest land and forced villagers to sell their lands to him at throwaway prices, but had even illegally erected electric poles to supply electricity from Guna district of MP to neighbouring Rajasthan. The poles were removed by the local administration on Tuesday.