Jamshedpur man murdered with cricket bat, Tata Steel employee arrested

Jamshedpur, Feb 11: In a shocking incident of crime, a 55-year-old man was murdered with a cricket bat. His body was found in a bag inside the dickey of a car parked near DBMS English School under Kadma police station area on Friday morning.

The victim identified as Dharmendra Singh, a resident of Line No 4 at Kashidih in Sakchi, was tied with wire and stuffed in a cricket kitbag.

The police have arrested the accused who is a middle-aged man identified as Vishwajit Pradhan. The police have seized the car while recovering the body and are interrogating Pradhan, who is a Tata Steel employee.

Dharmendra was murdered after being hit with a cricket bat by Pradhan sometime during the night. After the incident, the assailant tried to get the body disposed of by stuffing it in the cricket kitbag.

Senior SP M Tamil Vanan who visited the Sakchi police station, review the ongoing investigation said the murder victim would do money-lending business and had known Pradhan for the past 10 years or so.

 “As per our investigation, Dharmendra had left his home at about 11 am on Thursday, after he received a call from someone who asked him to pay Rs 50 lakhs as ‘rangdari’. When he did not return home till evening, his anxious family informed the Sakchi police about the extortion call and the disappearance of the victim. After the complaint, the police had put the mobile phone number of the caller on surveillance, and subsequently set up checking for random searches in every suspicious car across the city, ” said Vanan.

The senior SP said that during the checking drive which continued from midnight, a car was intercepted by the Kadma police station OC Manoj Kumar Thakur at about 4 am today and the body of Dharmendra Singh was recovered.

Sources went on to inform that during the probe the assailant is changing his statement time and again, the real reason behind the murder is yet to be ascertained. He said the place where the murder was committed is also not established yet. They are also working from different angles. They suspect there must be another person involved in the murder.