Video leads cops to two more suspects

Seven accused arrested earlier were sent to judicial custody on Thursday

Two more persons have been detained in the case of mob assault on four sadhus in the Sangli district. Now, the number of suspects has risen to nine as seven people were arrested on Wednesday, a day after the incident. The detainees were caught hold of after those arrested identified them from the incident's video, which has since gone viral on social media.

Sangli Local Crime Branch inspector Satish

Shinde said, “During interrogations, we showed them (the arrested suspects) viral videos of the incident and asked them to identify the suspects.

Based on this, we managed to detain two persons Shivanand Parit and Uttam Koli, and are making enquiries with them.”

All the accused were produced before the court on Thursday and sent to judicial custody for 14 days since the penal sections applied in the case were bailable, the police said.

On Tuesday morning, sadhus Nemchandnath Gosavi, Raju Gosavi, Pappu Gosavi and Prem Shankar were assaulted by a mob of more than 20 people as they suspected the victims to be child-lifters.

Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, the sadhus were heading towards the temple town of Pandharpur from Karnataka in a car.

Though the sadhus, who were assaulted, had not complained to the police, the suo-motu action was taken based on the viral videos of the incident.

The assault is also being seen as replay of the horrific 2020 lynching of two sadhus and their driver in Palghar. A mob had beaten the trio to death, while suspecting them to be thieves. “D uring interrogations, we showed them (the arrested suspects) viral videos of the incident and asked them to identify the suspects. Based on this, we managed to detain two persons Shivanand Parit and Uttam Koli, and are making enquiries with them.”

Satish Shinde, inspector