Man murdered in front of wife; 2 arrested

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In a sensational incident, a 41-year-old paan kiosk owner was murdered at Ranjangaon in the night of June 10 in front of his wife over a trivial issue.

The deceased has been identified as Sunil Shriram Rathod (Shivneri Colony, Ranjangaon). Police arrested the accused Shivaji alias Shiva Prakash Dudhmogre (22) and his brother Pavan Prakash Dudhmogre (24, Ranjangaon) who were involved in the murder.

Sunil Rathod who hailed from Gandhari (Lonar, Buldhana) had been staying at Ranjangaon Shengpunji with his wife Yogita (39), daughter Priya (08) and son Yuvraj (17 years) for the past nine years. Rathod who lost the sight of one eye was running a paan kiosk near Machhi Market of Ranjgaon for the survival of his family. Yogita and Yuvraj were also working in a private company to support the family.

Yuvraj was on his duty on Tuesday night. The accused were not ready to pay money for purchased paans. This resulted in arguments between the accused and the kiosk owner.

Yogita and Priya who were at home, received a phone call from Rathod that two to three youths were creating commotion and vandalising goods at his kiosk. He also informed his family that the youths threatened him with dire consequences at knifepoint. The woman and her daughter rushed towards the kiosk and saw that Shiva and Pavan were damaging goods. When Yogita tried to stop them, they attacked her with a stick and injured her. Shive brought Sunil out of the kiosk and attacked the latter with a knife to his throat and stomach. Due to deep injuries on the throat, Sunil was lying in a pool of blood on the road and fell unconscious. Significantly, no one came forward though there were many onlookers when all this was happening before Rathod’s wife. After the incident, the accused fled from the spot. Shiva was arrested within half an hour of committing the crime. Pavan who was hiding in darkness, was arrested at Ranjangaon after two hours on receiving information from the informer.

Senior police inspector Krishna Shinde said that when the accused were produced in the court on Wednesday, they were remanded to police custody for four days. PI Rajurkar is on the case.