Apex court suggests one agency for probe

THE BENCH WAS HEARING A PETITION TO TRANSFER KALBURGI MURDER CASE TO CBI. KALBURGI’S WIDOW HAS MOVED THE SUPREME COURT ALLEGING INSUBSTANTIAL PROBE

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court suggested on Tuesday to entrust the task of investigating the murders of social activists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalist MM Kalburgi to one agency, if there is a “common thread” in all the killings.

A bench of justices UU Lalit and Navin Sinha asked the CBI to inform the court by January first week as to why it should not probe all the four cases. The court was informed by Maharashtra government that CBI was enquiring into the murder cases of Dabholkar after the Bombay High asked the central agency to take over the probe.

The bench was hearing a petition to transfer Kalburgi mur- der case to CBI. Kalburgi’s widow has moved the top court claiming no substantial investigation has been carried out so far in the case.

On the court’s direction Karnataka on Tuesday submitted a status report on its probe in the Kalburgi case and admitted there was link between the scholar’s murder and that of Lankesh. Also, the state police said, that a chargesheet in the case would be filed in three months.

The court then went on to ask the Maharashtra government counsel about the status of the investigation into the Pansare murder case, to which the counsel said the case was pending before the Kohlapur trial court.

Kalburgi was killed at Dharwad, Karnataka, in 2015. Pansare was also killed in the same year. Lankesh was shot dead on September 5, 2017 in Bengaluru, whereas rationalist Dabholkar was assassinated on August 20, 2013.Former vice-chancellor of Hampi University and a wellknown epigraphist Kalburgi (77) was shot dead at his residence in Kalyan Nagar in Dharwad on August 30, 2015. He was a Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer of old Kannada literature.