The Karnataka SIT probing the case has unearthed a nexus of fundamentalists who reportedly had dozens of rationalists on their radar.
Bengaluru: It has been a year since Kannada journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home on a Tuesday evening.
Her murder came two years and a week after academic M.M. Kalburgi was shot dead at his home in Dharwad; two years and seven months after rationalist Govind Pansare was shot dead during his morning walk in Kolhapur; and just over four years after activist-doctor Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead while on his morning stroll in Pune.
As the country marks the first death anniversary of Lankesh, police seem to be getting closer to finding a common link between the murders of four voices that challenged orthodoxy and status quo.
Also read: First attempt to kill Gauri Lankesh was in June 2017, but aborted over ‘logistical issues’
Over the past year, the Karnataka special investigation team (SIT) probing the case has unearthed a nexus of fundamentalists who reportedly had dozens of rationalists on their radar.
Headed by Inspector General of Police B.K. Singh, the team has also provided crucial information to the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and the CBI which they believe will tie the four murders to one overarching conspiracy in the next few weeks.
The Karnataka SIT, Maharashtra ATS and the CBI are now working closely to solve the murders. It has been reported that it was a tip-off from the SIT that helped the ATS arrest Sachin Andure, one of the shooters involved in the killing of Dabholkar.
The first arrest in the Lankesh case took place on 18 February, although police were not aware of his links with the crime at the time.
K.T. Naveen Kumar, a member of the radical outfit known as Hindu Yuva Sena, was picked up following an intelligence report that he had been hired to eliminate Kannada writer K.S. Bhagwan.
Police have made 12 arrests so far, of which five are believed to be vital players:
- Amol Kale, the alleged mastermind of Lankesh’s murder
- Rajesh Bangera, the suspected recruiter for the conspiracy who also hired Kale and arms trainer for the operatives
- Amit Degwekar, the first link police found between the murder and the Goa-based radical outfit, Sanatan Sanstha. The Goa-based outfit and its affiliate Hindu Janajagruthi Samiti are believed to lie at the crux of the conspiracy to target rationalists.
- Sujeet alias Praveen Kumar, also a suspected recruiter
- Manohar Edave, who reportedly tracked Lankesh ahead of her murder.
The interrogation of the five has led police to uncover details about the conspiracy to kill the four rationalists and target 28 more, including theatre titan Girish Karnad.
The investigation so far has reportedly led police to identify Degwekar, a native of Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, as the alleged mastermind of the Pansare and Dabholkar murders.
Degwekar was initially believed to be an accomplice, but one crucial piece of evidence —Kale’s diary — reportedly laid bare the real nature of his involvement.
The SIT probe is said to have revealed that Degwekar recruited Bangera while looking for people to handle the “Karnataka end of the plot”.
Also read: Gauri Lankesh case – How a tip-off helped SIT unravel a ‘murder mafia’ targeting rationalists
Sujeet and Edave were also reportedly handpicked by Degwekar after he took over the reins of the Karnataka unit from Virendra Tawde, who was earlier arrested in the Dabholkar killing case.
Kale’s diary is said to have exposed many details of the larger conspiracy, and it was on basis of information in the journal that the CBI has now arrested Degwekar and Bangera.
The diary also led the SIT to two other suspects, Amit Baddi and Ganesh Miskin, who were part of the “logistics team” in the Lankesh murder.
The ‘Sanatan Sanstha link’
Ties to the Sanatan Sanstha and the HJS have repeatedly cropped up during arrests made in Karnataka as well as Maharashtra in connection with the killings of the rationalists as well as suspected terror plots.
Last month, the Maharashtra ATS seized a huge cache of crude bombs and arms from five men arrested for allegedly planning terror attacks in the state: Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar, Sudhanva Gondhalekar, former councillor Shrikant Pangarkar and Avinash Pawar.
SIT chief Singh and the ATS chief Atul Kulkarni subsequently held a meeting to determine whether the men had any direct link with those involved in the murder of Lankesh.
Also read: 10th man arrested for Gauri Lankesh murder may have hired mastermind Amol Kale
Though the Sanstha has sought to distance itself from the accused in the wake of the arrests, the SIT reportedly found several articles on their website (now deleted) where Kale and Gondhalekar’s children have been called “saints who posses divine powers”.
Meanwhile, lawyers of the accused have alleged that their clients are being tortured by the SIT in their bid “to extract a confession”, saying the suspects were innocent.
Advocate Nagesh Joshi, one of the lawyers for Miskin, Baddi and Bangera, has said the SIT is “planting evidence” to “frame his clients”.
A. Vedamurthy, the lawyer representing Naveen Kumar, said the SIT had invoked the Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act to buy time.
Goa is a postage stamp sized state, headed by a seasoned administrator. These activities should have shown up much earlier on its screen. Real progress is being made only when Karnataka got into the act.