CBI finds pistol that may link murders of 4 writer-activists

PUNE/NEW DELHI: Federal investigators announced on Tuesday that they have recovered a countrymade pistol that was possibly used in the murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, whose killing in 2013 was the first of four assassinations suspected to be linked to fundamentalist rightwing organisations.

Dabholkar was killed on August 20, 2013, by two men on a motorcycle while he was on his morning walk — a modus operandi similar to the murders of activists Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi in 2015, and journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh in 2017.

According to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers working on the Dabholkar case, the gun may be one of two 7.65mm-bore pistols that were common to all four murders.

The gun that was found following leads given by Sachin Prakasrao Andure, one of the men who allegedly carried out the hit on Dabholkar, following his arrest on Saturday. “The CBI on Tuesday morning recovered a pistol, a khukhri (a knife) and three live

rounds from the premises of a friend of a relative of Andure. The weapon is being sent for ballistic examination,” CBI spokesman Abhishek Dayal said.

Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi were strong critics of religion, particularly practices such as black magic and superstitionbased beliefs.

Lankesh, as a journalist and editor, often wrote against extremist Hindutva politics.

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