Eight, including three lawyers, arrested in Belagavi for advocate’s murder

The police have arrested eight people, including three lawyers, for killing an advocate reported in Raibag a few months ago.

Advocate Shivagouda Basagouda Patil of Bastawad, his junior lawyers Bharat Koli, Kiran Kempawade and Uday Mushennavar, Sanjaykumar Halabannavar, Ramu Dandapure, Suresh Nandi and Manjunath Talwar now face the charge of abducting and killing Santosh Patil in April.

Efforts are on to trace two more accused Nagaraj Nayak and lawyer Mahaveer Hanje who are absconding.

Based on a missing person complaint by Santosh Patil’s wife, the police began investigation. It revealed that the accused kidnapped the lawyer who was on his way to court, took him to the forests of Ganeshgudi in Uttara Kannada, killed him and burnt the body.

However, the police who worked on some clues, found the bones and got the DNA test done to prove that they belonged to the deceased.

Investigation revealed that Shivagouda Patil had a dispute with Santosh Patil over 1 acre four guntas of land in Raibag, Superintendent of Police Bheemashankar S. Guled told reporters.

“Santosh Patil filed a civil suit against Shivagouda in the Raibag court in January this year. Enraged by this, Shivagouda Patil plotted to kill him. He agreed to pay a sum of ₹14 lakh to some of the accused to kill him. Of this amount, ₹11 lakh was already paid. It is unfortunate that lawyers joined hands to kill another lawyer,” the Superintendent of Police said.