3 months later, no leads in Gauri murder probe

BENGALURU: Three months after the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot outside her house on September 5, the special investigation team is yet to make any significant headway.

On Monday, a senior officer with the SIT said so far leads had led to dead-ends, but following up on them was essential as different angles had to be ruled. Significantly, sketches of the suspects, which were made based on CCTV footage recovered from the area, released by the SIT in October have not yielded much.

“We had received a tip-off in Gadag that there were some persons who matched the sketches. But this turned out to be untrue,” said the officer. While the police had released a video that purportedly showed a suspect conducting a reconnaissance in the area, the officer confirmed police had been unsuccessful in tracing either that bike or the vehicle used by Lankesh’s killer.

Additionally, the SIT is yet to compare the bullets recovered from the scene of Lankesh’s murder with those of bullets recovered from the crime scenes of MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. The forensic science lab here had confirmed in September that the bullet had been fired from a 7.65 mm

We got a tipoff in Gadag that there were some persons who matched the sketches. It turned out to be untrue. A SENIOR OFFICER WITH THE SIT

country-made pistol. However, the SIT is yet to receive the other bullets for comparison.

State home minister Ramalinga Reddy refused to comment, saying he would do so when a breakthrough was reached.

Speaking to HT, Kavita Lankesh, Gauri’s sister, said the family was still hopeful that the SIT would be able to crack the case soon. “The chief minister is personally monitoring the progress of the probe and we are hopeful that the SIT will arrive at a breakthrough soon,” she said.

Kavita said there was no rush to demand that the probe be shifted to the CBI, which was a demand put forward by her brother Indrajit.

“The state government and the investigation team have been working very hard and they have constantly informed us about the progress of the investigation. Besides, it looks like the murder was done by an organised group so we know that it will be difficult to crack the case so soon.”