One more arrested in Pune techie murder case

Pune: One more person has been taken into custody in connection with the mob violence and murder of a 28-year-old techie at Hadapsar in Pune on 2 June after objectionable Facebook posts surfaced, taking the number of arrests in the case to 20.  The 21-year-old youth, who was arrested last night, belonged to Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) and was allegedly involved in the violent incident at Bankar colony in the suburb, police said on Tuesday. Among the arrested are two minors, who have been sent to remand home. The head of HRS Dhananjay Desai was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days on Monday in an offence registered at Loni Kalbhor in rural Pune for circulation of inflammatory literature causing social and communal disharmony. 17 other activists of the self-styled outfit were remanded in police custody by a magisterial court till 12 June for their alleged involvement in the murder of Mohasin Shaikh, an IT professional who stayed at Hadapsar. Even as investigators continued their efforts to identify the persons who uploaded the objectionable content denigrating King Shivaji and late Bal Thackeray, police officials here chose not to comment on Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil’s statement that the IP of the concerned FB accounts had been tracked down to foreign countries and that the culprits would be nabbed soon. “We have no information on this count. It is not fair on my part to comment on the minister’s statement as he has many sources to get relevant information,” Sanjay Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police, told PTI on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the situation in the city and suburbs which witnessed sporadic incidents of stone pelting on buses in the last few days, remained peaceful with police maintaining a strict vigil against anti-social elements and monitoring internet to detect any offensive content on social networking sites. PTI