Karnataka Police claimed to have cracked the April 19 murder of four people in Gadag town with the arrest of eight suspects, including the alleged kingpin of the plot that went awry, Vinayak Bakale, who is the half-brother of one of the victims, Karthik Bakale.
Police said a dispute over property between Vinayak and his father Prakash Bakale was at the centre of the “contract killing”, in which three relatives of Karthik lost their lives due to misidentity.
Karthik, Parashuram Hadimani (55), his wife Lakshmi (45), and their daughter Akanksha (16), were hacked to death in the early hours on April 19 at Bakales’ house in Dasara Oni in Gadag town. Police said the Hadimani family had come to attend Karthik’s engagement ceremony and they got killed as the assailants presumed them to be Bakales.
Karthik, 27, was the son of Gadag-Betgeri city municipal council vice-president Prakash Bakale and his second wife Sunanda; and the alleged kingpin, Vinayak, 31, police said, is Prakash’s son from his first wife who allegedly hired contract killers to eliminate the three (Karthik, Prakash and Sunanda), IG (Northern Range) Vikash Kumar said.
The IG said Vinayak, a realtor, with the help of one Jishan struck a deal with a gang from Miraj, Maharashtra, to eliminate his kin over a property dispute by promising them Rs 65 lakh ‘supari’, of which Rs 2 lakh he paid in advance.
Besides Vinayak, others arrested have been identified as Fairoz (29), Jishan (24), Sahil Ashpak Khaji (19), Sohail Ashpak Khaji (19), Sultan Jilani Sheikh (23), Mahesh Jagannath Salunke (21), and Waheed Liyaqat Bepart (21).
Police said they arrested the accused from Maharashtra, Goa, and Karnataka. “Vinayak had sold some properties without consulting his father, leading to differences,” a police officer said.
