Maharashtra journalist allegedly crushed to death after exposing refinery project

Mumbai:

Police on Wednesday filed a murder charge against a man arrested for running over a journalist with his car in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district, an official said.

Several media organizations have demanded an inquiry into the death of journalist Shashikant Warishe, claiming that he had written against local land dealer Pandharinath Ambarkar, who is said to be a supporter of the proposed Ratnagiri refinery project.

The organizations claimed that Ambarkar crushed the journalist’s bike under his car at a petrol pump in Ratnagiri district on Monday. Warish succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in Kolhapur on Tuesday.

The accused (42) was arrested under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The police have added section 302 (punishment for murder) in the FIR against Ambarkar, the official said. He was sent to police custody in Rajapur till 13 February.

Police is probing the exact reason behind the murder.

Earlier, members of the Akhil Bhartiya Marathi Patrakar Parishad had met Maharashtra Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demanded a probe into Mr Warish’s death.

The Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemical Project, which was earlier proposed to be built at Nanar village in Ratnagiri district in coastal Konkan, was scrapped ahead of the 2019 elections at the insistence of Shiv Sena, the then alliance partner of the BJP.

A Union minister had said last year that setting up a 60 million metric tonne per year oil refinery would be the world’s largest plant and hinted at its revival.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)