Gondia property broker, 21, held for killing 61-year-old after losing land deal money in share trading

A 61-year-old man was murdered in Bothli village under Amgaon police station limits in Gondia district. According to police, a 21-year-old property broker is accused of committing the crime after losing money from a land deal in intraday share trading. The accused has been identified as Ajay Shamrao Bramhankar. The deceased is Chandrashekhar Bhaskar Dahikar, whom people called "Guruji".

Police investigation shows that Dahikar lived alone. In September 2026 he made Bramhankar, a property broker from the same village, the intermediary for selling his land. The buyer paid Rs 5 lakh as token money. Of this, Rs 4 lakh was deposited in Bramhankar's bank account on trust.

The registry could not be completed because of irregularities in the land papers, and the deal with the buyer fell through. Under the agreed terms, the money was to be returned to the buyer by noon on October 27. Dahikar was repeatedly asking Bramhankar to return his Rs 4 lakh.

Meanwhile, Bramhankar allegedly put the amount into intraday trading and lost about Rs 3.5 lakh. The deadline was near and the bank account was empty. Police say the accused hatched a plot to get rid of Dahikar to escape this pressure, it is alleged.

According to the allegations, at around 10 pm on October 26, Dahikar was walking home from the village. Bramhankar was lying in ambush near his house. As the elderly man came close, he picked up a heavy brick and struck him several times on the head and chest. Dahikar died on the spot. After the attack, the accused allegedly dragged the body into the bushes in front of the house and fled.

When the blood-soaked body was found among the bushes in a field in Bothli at around 11.30 am on October 27, panic spread in the area. On the complaint of Shakuntala Pathode, the police patil of Jawari village, Amgaon police registered a murder case under Section 103(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Given the seriousness of the crime, Superintendent of Police Gorakh Bhamre and Additional Superintendent of Police Abhay Dongre immediately handed the investigation to the Local Crime Branch (LCB). A team led by LCB Police Inspector Revchand Singanjude examined the accused's contacts in the village and the money transactions. Within a few hours, suspicion fell on Ajay.

Police said that when he was taken into custody and questioned, he allegedly confessed to the crime and narrated the sequence of events. He was then arrested. With the help of technical investigation and a network of informers, the Gondia LCB solved the case within 12 hours.

More than 20 personnel of the crime branch and the cyber cell played a key role in solving the case in 12 hours. They included LCB Police Inspector Revchand Singanjude, API Amardeep Khade, ASI Raju Mishra and cyber cell API Devidas Thamke.