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NCP MP held for Cong leader’s murder
Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service

NCP MP Padamsinh Patil in CBI custody in Mumbai on Sunday. — PTI

Mumbai, June 7
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP from Osmanabad Padamsinh Patil was formally arrested today in connection with the murder of his cousin and Congress leader Pawanraje Nimbalkar in 2006. Patil was produced before a magistrate’s court in Panvel outside Mumbai and remanded in CBI custody till June 14.

According to senior public prosecutor Ejaz Khan who is handling the case, Patil has been charged with murder and criminal conspiracy.

Earlier, Patil complained of chest pain, headache and low blood pressure. He was taken to the JJ Hospital in the city. He was discharged later in the day.

The case was handed over to the CBI as the police failed to make headway in the Nimbalkar murder case. Patil’s name cropped after two hitmen, Dinesh Tiwari and Parasmal T. Jain, confessed that the politician had put out a contract to kill Nimbalkar. They allegedly told investigators that the politician also wanted noted social worker and Magsaysay award winner Anna Hazare to be killed as well.

Hazare had forced the Maharashtra government to order an inquiry into the functioning of the Terna Sugar Cooperative run by Patil.

Nimbalkar’s family accused Patil of carrying out the murder because the former was aware of the senior politician’s misdeeds and was threatening to go public with information. Patil has, however, denied that he had anything to do with the murder. A former Home Minister, Patil accused political rivals of trying to frame him in the murder case.

Nimbalkar and his driver Samad Qazi were shot dead while they were driving to Mumbai on July 3, 2006.

Padamsinh Patil won from the Osmanabad Lok Sabha constituency only last month.

Meanwhile, protests have broken out in Osmanabad, Patil’s hometown. The politician’s supporters went on a rampage damaging vehicles belonging to television channels and burnt two state transport buses.

The local administration has rushed additional companies of state reserve police to the town to restore normalcy.

The issue has snowballed into a major political controversy since Patil is a close confidant of NCP leader Sharad Pawar. Patil’s son Rana Jagjit Singh Patil is Minister of State for Industries in Ashok Chavan’s cabinet. The opposition Shiv Sena-BJP is demanding that the younger Patil be dropped from the cabinet.