CBI: Dabholkar, Kalburgi murders linked
PUNE: The 2013 killing of Marathi rationalist Narendra Dabholkar is linked to the murders of communist leader Govind Pansare and Kannda writer MM Kalburgi in 2015, the Central Bureau of Investigation told a Pune court.
In a short submission before judicial magistrate (first class) SMA Sayyad on Monday, the agency also termed the Dabholkar shooting an act of terror and invoked provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which carries the maximum punishment of death.
Dabholkar, 67, was gunned down in August 2013 when he was out on a morning walk.
In its submission, the CBI said section 15 of the UAPA defined a “terrorist act”, while section 16 stated that if the “act” results in death, the punishment is either the death sentence or life term. CBI counsel Vijaykumar Dhakane said the UAPA had been invoked taking into account the gravity of the offence linked to terror and terrorist organisations. “The killing of Dabholkar is connected to Kalburgi and Pansare and investigations are on in the case. The intention behind killing all these people is to create terror in society,” said Dhakane.
In August, the agency had told the court that it had unearthed links between the murders of Dabholkar and Kannada journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was gunned down outside her Bengaluru home in September 2017.
At that time, the CBI had pointed out that at least three suspects – Amol Kale, Rajesh Bangera and Sharad Kalaskar – were common between the Dabholkar and Lankesh cases.
Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur and succumbed to his injuries on February 20, 2015. The same year, Kalburgi was shot dead inside his house in Karnataka’s Dharwad district on August 30. The CBI is probing the Dabholkar case, the Maharashtra special investigation team is investigating Pansare’s death while a Karnataka SIT is looking into the Lankesh murder. The Karnataka Police is probing Kalburgi’s killing. There are seven suspects in the Dabholkar case — Virendra Tawade, Sachin Andure, Sharad Kalaskar, Vaibhav Raut, Amol Kale, Rajesh Bangera and Amit Digvekar. The first link between the murders of Dabholkar and Lankesh emerged in August when the CBI recovered a gun during raids in Aurangabad and arrested two suspects. The prime suspect in the Dabholkar case, Andure, allegedly told investigators that the gun and three bullets had been given to him by a man who has been arrested in the Lankesh murder case.