Drug addict held for friend and sadhu’s murder in Nanded dst

25-year-old drug addict has been arrested from the Tanur police station limits along the Maharashtra-telangana border, around eight hours after he allegedly strangled his friend and a sadhu (seer) in an ashram at Nagthana village of Nanded early on Sunday.

According to the police, it has been discovered that Sainath Lingare wanted to break into the ashram and steal money and had asked his friend Bhagwan Shinde, 50, to be an accomplice. When he refused, Lingare strangled the victim and dumped his body in the ashram’s bathroom. He then entered the room of the sadhu, Swami Rudra Pratap

Maharaj, 33. When the seer woke up, Lingare threw chilli powder in his eyes, which he had carried with him, and before the victim could raise an alarm, the accused strangled him, the police said.

“Lingare then dumped Maharaj’s body in a car and tried to flee but he crashed his vehicle into the ashram gate. Hearing the noise, the other sadhus who were sleeping on the ashram’s terrace, came down,” said inspector Ashok Anantre of Umri police station at Nanded. Lingare then fled on his friend’s bike, which he had parked at his home near the ashram.

The eyewitnesses informed the police about the murders, following which they began the probe. “We had alerted the police in the neighbouring districts and shared Lingare’s picture with them. Around 4pm, Lingare was nabbed from Tanur,” Vijaykumar Magar, superintendent of police, Nanded district, said.

Lingare and Shinde had met each other at a zilla parishad school, around 700 metres away from the ashram a day before the murders, the police said.

“Lingare is a resident of Nagthana and is a drug addict. He was charged for murder around 10 years ago, but he was a minor then. He also has a case of car theft against him,” said Anantre.

The accused has been booked for murder and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

“We are trying to ascertain how much money he robbed from the ashram,” said Anantre.