Maharashtra BJP activist's killer kin nabbed from Punjab

Ten days after the brutal killing of a BJP activist and four of his family members, their missing relative has been nabbed from Punjab by the Nagpur police for the multiple murders that shook the state's second capital, officials said here on Friday.

The victim Kamlakar Pavankar's brother-in-law, Vivek Palatkar, who was absconding since the June 11 murders, was tracked for three days by a state police team at Ludhiana and finally nabbed late on Thursday.

He is likely to be brought to Nagpur later on Friday and produced before a court, said an official of Nandanvan Police Station which is investigating the case.

A Nagpur Crime Branch team, after tracking him through cyber technology, zeroed in on his location in a modest locality of Ludhiana slum where he had secured a job in a factory and taken up room on rent after masquerading as a teacher.

According to the investigators, Palatkar allegedly killed Pavankar, a local businessman and Bharatiya Janata Party worker, his mother Meera, his wife Archana, their minor daughter Vedanti and their nephew Ganesh between 1 and 3 a.m. on June 11.

While the couple and their daughter were killed as they slept in their bedroom, the mother and nephew's bodies were found in the kitchen.

After the multiple murders were detected, the police found no signs of any forcible entry to the home, no robbery attempt or signs of any struggle by the victims, clearly pointing to an insider's job.

They found Pavankar's scooter parked outside Palatkar's home, but he (Palatkar) was missing after which a dozen police teams launched a hunt for him.

Interestingly, Palatkar had been charged with the murder of his wife Savita in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was out on parole when he committed the multiple-murders.

After his imprisonment, the deceased Pavankar had taken over the responsibility of looking after his two children, of whom one (Ganesh, 4) he killed by mistake that morning, while sparing his own daughter, seven-year old Mitali Parrikar.

In severe trauma since the incident, Mitali Palatkar has been in a government shelter after a special order issued by the Child Welfare Committee as other scared relatives refused to take charge of her.

After killing his wife in 2014, Palatkar had similarly fled from Maharashtra and was finally tracked near Vaishnodevi Temple in Jammu a few days later.

The motive behind the latest multiple murder crime is said to be an old financial dispute between the kin following which Palatkar went berserk and eliminated his brother-in-law Pavankar's entire family, including his own son, Ganesh.

Pavankar was a realty dealer and a local BJP activist who also ran an electronic spares shop in the Aradhna Nagar area of the city.

Besides, he had rented out another shop near his house in and owned a 10-acre plot on which some disputes were going on, and police are probing all possible angles including business rivalry.

--IANS

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