The Palamau Police on Sunday said they have cracked a kidnapping and murder case of a farmer, Vishwanath Yadav, of Matnag village, the case of which was registered under the Panki police station.

At a press briefing on Sunday, SP Palamau Sanjeev Kumar said the farmer was kidnapped not for any ransom but because the captors wanted to kill him. The ransom was just a ploy to keep the local police in the dark.

Yadav was kidnapped on December 10 evening and killed on the same night by nine people, Kumar added.

He said that Yadav’s close acquaintance Guddan Miyan, who used to have financial relations with him, gunned him down. Miyan had loaned a large amount of money from Yadav but did not have any intention to give it back.

SP Palamau Sanjeev Kumar holds a press conference on Sunday to brief about the murder case of the farmer. Telegraph Picture

The police, however, could not ascertain the exact reason of the murder -- whether it was because of financial or any political reasons.

They said they are depending on information from Yadav’s mobile phone, which was recovered from Miyan’s possession.

Kumar said the captors had used this phone to make a call to the farmer’s family demanding a random of Rs 10 lakhs.

The police have also recovered a gun, a local ‘Katta’, but said they need to confirm if it was the weapon used to kill Yadav.

The three accused, Miyan, Shamshad and Aftab, were nabbed and sent to judicial remand on Sunday evening.

Kumar acknowledged that the case was challenging and there was a good amount of external pressure on them to put certain people behind the bars, against whom the police had no proof.

Sources said BJP MLA Shashibhushan Mehta had tweeted to the Chief Minister and the Directorate General of Police, Jharkhand, against the murder of the farmer, demanding actions against the Panki police.