LINGAYAT GURU, DISCIPLE KILLED BY HISTORY-SHEETER

After the murders of a religious leader and his disciple late on Saturday in Nanded district, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Home Minister Anil Deshmukh took serious note and instructed police to arrest the accused. Within a few hours, the killer was caught.

Superintendent of Police of Nanded district Vijaya Magar, Additional SP Vijay Pawar and senior police officers reached the scene of the crime. Teams fanned out to track down the accused. After Maharashtra Police alerted their Telangana counterparts, the latter nabbed the accused on his two-wheeler the following afternoon and handed him over to Nanded Police at 3 pm on Sunday.

There appears to be no religious motive behind the murder, just as in the April 16 incident at Palghar, where two sadhus and the driver of the car they were travelling in, were killed after being mistaken for thieves by a mob. In Nanded, the motive for the double murder appears to be robbery.

Nirwan Rudra Pashupatinath Maharaj was killed at his mutt in Nagathana village, Umari tehsil, by Sainath Lingade around 2 am on Saturday. The guru, also known as 'Baltapasvi', was an important religious leader of the Lingayats. The accused too is a Lingayat.

At the time of the incident, many of his disciples were sleeping on the terrace of the mutt. Lingade entered the mutt around 1.30 am and first killed Bhagwan Shinde, a disciple and dumped his body in the bathroom. Then he entered the room where Pashupatinath Maharaj was sleeping and strangled him to death. He robbed the cash and gold in his room, dragged Maharaj’s body to his car and tried to flee. But as he was trying to do so, his car struck the gate. The loud noise alerted the villagers and disciples sleeping on the terrace. Panicking, the accused fled on his twowheeler.