Pune: Eight persons arrested for alleged involvement in the murder of gangster Sharad Mohol in Pune were remanded in police custody by a local court on Saturday.
Mohol, a history-sheeter with cases of kidnapping, attempt to murder and murder registered against his name, was shot at on Friday by three persons near his house in Sutardara in the Kothrud area here and died some hours later in a hospital from bullet wounds in the chest and shoulder.
Eight persons, including prime suspect Sahil Polekar (20) and two lawyers, were held late Friday night from a spot on the Pune-Satara highway along with firearms and live bullets.
Mohol (40) rose to fame after he and his aide were accused in the murder of suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Mohammad Qateel Siddiqui inside Yerawada jail here. He was later acquitted in the case.
CCTV footage of Mohol being shot at was shown on television channels on Saturday afternoon.
Speaking to reporters, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ramnath Pokale said preliminary investigations point to the murder being a fallout of a land and financial dispute.
"Polekar and two others had opened fire at Mohol. Eight persons, including Polekar and two lawyers Ravindra Pawar (40) and Sanjay Udan (43), were arrested from Shirwal on Pune-Satara Road. The others held are Namdev Kangude (35), Amit Kangude (24), Chandrakant Shelke (22), Vinayak Gavhankar (20) and Vitthal Gandale (34)," he said.
Arrested accused Kangude, who is the maternal uncle of Polekar, and Gandale had some enmity with Mohol, the additional CP said.
"We are probing all angles and checking the role of the two lawyers. For more than one year, Polekar used to visit Mohol but the frequency of these meets had increased over the last 25 days. Polekar lives in the same area as Mohol," the official said.
Incidentally, Polekar had a meal at Mohol's house as it was the deceased gangster's wedding anniversary on Friday, he added.
Another official said since Namdev Kangude had enmity with Mohol, it appears Amit Kangude and Polekar infiltrated the deceased's gang to eliminate him.
As per police, Mohol, who hailed from a Mutha village in Mulshi tehsil, was associated with history-sheeter Sandip Mohol, who was killed by the rival Kishor Marne gang in 2006.
Sharad Mohol took the reins of the Mohol gang and avenged the murder of Sandip by killing Kishor Marne in October 2010.
Sharad Mohol spread his gang's network in the Mulshi area by resorting to extortion, kidnapping and body offences.
In 2011, he kidnapped a sarpanch of a village near Lavasa for a ransom of Rs 47 lakh, after which he was booked under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), as per police.
When he was lodged in Yerawada Jail, Mohol and and his aide Alok Bhalekar's names came up in the murder of suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Mohammad Qateel Siddiqui, who was killed inside jail with the string of a bermuda pant on June 8, 2012.
In 2016, Mohol and some members of his gang were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of rival gangster Kishor Marne.
Mohol, however, got bail from the Bombay High Court in 2021.
His wife Swati Mohol had recently joined BJP and was active in the party activities. The deceased gangster was also active in various social activities.
