Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Deepak Mankar, who had been absconding since June after being booked for abetting the suicide of a local realtor, Jitendra Jagtap, surrendered on Wednesday.
Mr. Mankar presented himself before Assistant Commissioner of Police Jayashree Gaikwad at the Lashkar police station after the Supreme Court rejected his petition for anticipatory bail on July 24, giving him 10 days to surrender. He was later produced before a local court which has remanded him in police custody till August 3.
His petition had earlier been rejected by both the Pune sessions and Bombay High Court.
Mr. Mankar, a sitting corporator in the Pune civic body, was named in a suicide note by Jagtap, who took his life in the city’s Ghorpadi area in June.
The note also named a local developer, Sudhir Karnataki and seven others for allegedly harassing Jagtap over a plot of land in the city’s Rasta Peth area, which was being managed by him for several years.
An FIR under Sections 306 (abetment to suicide), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered at the Samarth police station against nine people, including Mr. Mankar by the police, who acted on a complaint lodged by the deceased’s son, Jayesh Jagtap.
History of land-grab
Mr. Mankar, who was recently in the running for post of the NCP’s city unit chief, has a history of fraud and land-grab cases against him.
In June 2009, the city police had booked Mr. Mankar (then with the Congress Party) for allegedly encroaching upon a piece of land in the city’s Baner area belonging to a senior citizen.
That same month, he was booked in a second case along with builder Sudhir Karnataki for allegedly attempting to grab property belonging to a retired professor in the Shukrawar Peth area.
After the Pune sessions court rejected his bail, Mr. Mankar absconded, leading police to launch a hunt to trace him.
The case made local headlines after then Pune Police Commissioner and current Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr. Satyapal Singh had announced a cash reward to those furnishing information of the missing politico’s whereabouts.
Local Crime Branch authorities finally succeeded in arresting Mr. Mankar in July. However, he was granted bail by a local court in August 2009.