PALANPUR: A 31-year-old credit manager of a finance company was allegedly tied to a tree and beaten to death with sticks by his girlfriend’s family members after he went to meet her in Thangna village of Kheralu taluka in Mehsana district late on Wednesday night.Four people have been rounded up in connection with the murder, police said.The deceased, Ranjitji Thakor, was a resident of Vagharol village in Sidhpur taluka of Patan district and worked as a credit manager at Cholamandalam in Siddhpur.According to the FIR, he had been in a relationship with a woman from Thangna for about two years, and his family was aware of it. His first marriage ended in divorce in 2024, the FIR states.Ranjitji left home on his motorcycle for work around 9am on October 27. When his mother called him at 11.45pm, he reportedly told her that he would return late.Around 3.30am on October 28, a relative informed his family that he had gone to meet the woman in Thangna and had been caught by her family.The FIR alleges that the woman’s mother, brother and paternal uncle, along with another relative, tied Ranjitji’s hands and legs with ropes to a tamarind tree near their house and assaulted him with sticks.When he stopped responding, they allegedly placed him on a cot, where he died.Ranjitji’s father and other relatives reached the village around 9am after learning about the incident.They found his body on the iron cot beneath the tree, covered with a sack. The father told police that he noticed injury marks on his son’s back, neck, waist and legs. He also reported that a gold chain weighing around one-and-a-half tolas was missing.Police took custody of the body and initiated inquest and postmortem procedures.
