Navi Mumbai: Two people, including a former police officer, were arrested yesterday for the murder of a top builder here, taking the total number of people arrested in the ghastly crime to three, police said.
Wajid Qureshi, 28, was arrested in Thane. Earlier in the day, former police officer Emmanuel Samuel Amolik was nabbed and remanded in police custody till February 22, for his alleged role in the murder, along with Venkatesh Shettiar.
Top Navi Mumbai builder
S K Loharia was shot dead outside his office in Vashi by two men disguised as security personnel on Saturday morning.
Loharia, 52, was a director with S K Brothers, a realty company engaged in constructing residential and commercial complexes in Navi Mumbai.
“Wajid Qureshi, 28, has been arrested from Mumbra (in Thane district). He had escaped the crime scene after he and Shettiar killed Loharia. Qureshi will be produced in court on Monday,” Navi Mumbai Commissioner of Police A K Sharma told reporters here.
The entire incident was recorded in the CCTV camera installed at the entrance of Loharia’s office.
Shettiar was arrested soon after the shooting, as people caught hold of him while his accomplice managed to escape on a motorcycle. The CCTV footage confirmed Shettiar to be one of the accused.
According to police sources, it was Shettiar who named Amolik to be a part of the crime. Police sources also said that Amolik was an encounter specialist who was arrested and suspended in 2003 for his alleged links with the underworld. However, he had resumed work after a few months, retiring in 2011, last serving in Mumbra in Thane district.
At a press briefing, held by the family members of Loharia earlier yesterday, his brother Sanjeev claimed that the killers named seven people with whom his brother had been at loggerheads over some court cases.
IANS
