Three head constables of Mundra police station, on the run since two custodial deaths in January this 12 months, had been nabbed and despatched to nine-day police remand on Saturday. According to the police, the constables are the prime accused within the custodial deaths of two informal labourers from Samghogha village in Kutch district’s Mundra taluka. The two labourers, Arjan Gadhvi (27) and Hajog Gadhvi (26), had been picked up for a home break-in.
Officers of Kutch (west) police mentioned Shaktisinh Gohil, Ashok Kannad and Jaydevsinh Jhala had been nabbed by a workforce of the Local Crime Branch (LCB) from Bhavnagar Thursday morning and dropped at Kutch on Friday. “The accused were formally arrested on Friday. We produced them in a court in Mundra on Saturday and with an application seeking their remand for 14 days. However, the court granted us the custody of the accused for nine days,” Jayesh Panchal, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) of Bhuj division of the Kutch (west) police, informed The Indian Express on Saturday.
A workforce of the LCB performed a raid at Hotel Meriton close to Nari Chowkadi on the outskirts of Bhavnagar metropolis Thursday morning, police mentioned. While Kannad and Jhala had been caught from their room within the lodge, Gohil was picked up from his relative’s residence in Bhavnagar metropolis minutes later, officers mentioned.
“After the death of the two men, the three constables absconded and had been hiding in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. However, they ran out of money and returned to Gujarat,” DySP Panchal, who’s the investigating officer within the Mundra custodial deaths case, additional mentioned.
With the arrests of the three head constables, the variety of arrests within the Mundra custodial deaths case has gone as much as 10. Police had earlier arrested then Mundra police inspector J A Padhiyar, homeguards Viral Joshi and Shambu Ahir; constables Gafurji Thakor and Kapil Desai, civilian Narvirsinh Sarvaiya and a former sarpanch of Samaghogha village, Jayvirsinh Jadeja. The victims of households have alleged that the policemen beat Arjan and Harjog to demise on the behest of Jayvirsinh Jadeja because of a land dispute.
The arrests of the trio come precisely every week after a neighborhood courtroom in Mundra declared them proclaimed offenders on March 19. After they had been booked in custodial deaths case on January 20 this 12 months, the three constables had been suspended from service
According to an FIR registered at Mundra police station on January 20, police had picked up Arjan, Harjog and Shamla Gadhvi as suspects in a home break-in incident in Samaghogha village.
According to the police, the accused policemen and the previous sarpanch of Samghogha allegedly stored the three males in unlawful confinement and bodily tortured them resulting in Arjan’s demise on January 19. In his grievance, Arjan’s relative Devraj Gadhvi named the three head-constables as accused. The trio was booked for homicide and illegally confining the three males of Samaghogha. Harjog had succumbed to accidents whereas present process remedy in a hospital in Ahmedabad on February 6 whereas Shamla has since recovered.