India, March 2 -- Food and civil supplies minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Dhananjay Munde's aide Walmik Karad was the mastermind behind the murder of Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, according to the charge sheet submitted by police in the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court in Beed.

Karad himself sought a ransom of Rs.2 crore from the land acquisition officer of Avaada, a renewable energy company with presence in Beed. He plotted to murder Deshmukh after the sarpanch tried to block his associates' attempt at recovering the money, says the charge sheet submitted by the state criminal investigation department's special investigation team (CID-SIT).

It links the extortion case and the murde...