Navi Mumbai, Dec. 29 -- The Raigad police on Saturday arrested nine people in connection with the murder of Mangesh Sadashiv Kalokhe alias Appa, 75, who was killed in broad daylight on Friday. The accused were nabbed a day after the murder following an intensive manhunt involving 25 special teams, police said. "Our investigation shows that Kalokhe was murdered as part of a pre-planned conspiracy," an officer familiar with the case told HT. According to the police, Kalokhe was killed around 7am on Friday, shortly after he had dropped his daughter to school and was returning home. A group of assailants armed with swords, sickles and an axe allegedly attacked him near the Jaya Bar chowk - they knocked him to the ground and assaulted him repeatedly, killing him on the spot. "The accused had switched off their mobile phones and fled towards Mumbai and other locations to evade arrest. Despite the lack of concrete location inputs, police relied on technical analysis, intelligence inputs and coordinated field operations to trace their movements, " Raigad Superintendent of Police Anchal Dalal told Hindustan Times. Dalal ordered a coordinated crackdown immediately after Friday's incident, and 25 special teams were deployed on the case under the supervision of additional superintendent of police Abhijit Shivdhare and sub-divisional police officer Vishal Nehul, said the officer quoted earlier. The 25 teams included officers from the Khopoli, Khalapur, Rasayani, and Neral police stations as well as the local crime branch, the officer said. The arrested accused were identified as Ravindra Parshuram Devkar, Darshan Ravindra Devkar, Dhanesh Ravindra Devkar, Urmila Ravindra Devkar, Vishal Subhash Deshmukh, Mahesh Shivaji Dhyatadak, Sagar Raju More, Sachin Dayanand Kharade and Dilip Haribhau Pawar. Police said further investigation is underway to establish individual roles, recover weapons used in the crime and identify any additional conspirators who may have aided the accused after the murder. Kalokhe was the husband of newly elected Shiv Sena corporator Mansi Kalokhe and his murder snowballed into a full-blown political controversy, with the name of NCP state president Sunil Tatkare being dragged into the matter. Deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde visited the bereaved family on Saturday....