By IANS,
Raigad (Maharashtra) : Shashikant Kulkarni, a prime accused and absconder in the killing of Congress leader Pawan Raje Nimbalkar, surrendered before a court here in Maharashtra Tuesday.
Kulkarni was remanded to judicial custody till Sep 9, according to an official of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is investigating the murder case.
CBI chief (Mumbai Zone) P. Kandaswamy said that Kulkarni had been named in the charge sheet in the killings of Nimbalkar and his driver Samad Kazi, but had been absconding so far.
A government employee, Kulkarni is the brother-in-law of one of the prime accused, Satish Mandade.
According to the CBI, Kulkarni had paid a sum of Rs.400,000 to the others in the twin murder conspiracy to procure weapons, ammunition and a getaway vehicle.
The CBI will move the Panvel court Wednesday to seek Kulkarni’s custody for interrogation and further investigations into the case.
Earlier this month, the CBI filed a charge sheet running into more than 5,000 pages that named suspended Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Padamsinh Patil as the chief conspirator in the double murder case.
Besides Patil, it named eight people as accused in the case. They are:
Satish R. Mandade (of Latur), Mohan A. Shukla (Dombivli) and Parasmal Tarachand Jain alias Badala (Dombivli), Dinesh R Tiwari, Kailash Yadav and Gyanendra alias Chhote Pandey (all from Uttar Pradesh), Pintoo Singh (Siwan, Bihar) and Shashikant Kulkarni (Mumbai).
Patil, a sitting MP from Osmanabad, was nabbed June 7 in connection with the killing of Nimbalkar and his driver near Panvel in Raigad district, around 100 km from Mumbai.
The CBI said that in 2005, Patil hatched a criminal conspiracy with Mandade and Shukla to eliminate Nimbalkar who had become a threat to his political career.