It was a probe by a Particular Investigation Staff of the Karnataka Police into the September 5, 2017, taking pictures of journalist Gauri Lankesh, 55, at her dwelling in Bengaluru that cracked open the CBI investigations within the August 20, 2013 homicide in Pune of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, 69, by members of a right-wing extremist group.
On Friday, a classes court docket in Pune convicted two individuals — Sachin Andhure and Sharad Kalaskar — to life imprisonment following a trial the place they had been recognized because the shooters who gunned down Dabholkar on the morning of August 20, 2013, whereas he was out for a morning stroll in Pune. The court docket, nevertheless, acquitted three conspirators within the case.
The ballistic evaluation reviews for the 2 murders in Karnataka in 2015 and 2017, the SIT’s arrest of a person who plotted the murders, the invention of a diary he stored with the coded names of shooters, trainers and logistics suppliers and the arrest of a shooter and coach for the 2017 homicide by the SIT — all of those contributed to the cracking of the Narendra Dabholkar homicide case.
“The SIT shared data with the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad on the identities of the shooters within the Dabholkar case which emerged through the investigations of the Gauri Lankesh case. This facilitated the arrest of Sachin Andhure and Sharad Kalaskar in August 2018 by the ATS,” stated a police officer of the Karnataka SIT which investigated the Lankesh homicide.
Within the Gauri Lankesh murder case, 17 individuals linked to an organised right-wing crime syndicate — comprising former members of a number of radical Hindutva outfits just like the Sanatan Sanstha and its affiliate the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, the Sri Rama Sena and the Shri Shivpratishthan Hindustan — are accused of focusing on individuals thought-about inimical to Hindutva.
One of many 17 accused within the Gauri Lankesh case is Sharad Kalaskar, who was convicted on Friday by a classes court docket in Pune. The Gauri Lankesh case remains to be within the early trial levels.
First Karnataka SIT breakthrough that led to the cracking of Dabholkar case
One of many early breakthroughs within the Karnataka SIT investigations of the September 2017 homicide of journalist Gauri Lankesh was a ballistics report from the Karnataka State Forensic Science Laboratory for the bullets fired on the journalist which stated the gun used for the homicide was the identical gun that was used to shoot down the scholar Prof M M Kalburgi, 77, on the doorstep of his home in Dharwad two years earlier than on the morning of August 30, 2015.
9 days after the Gauri Lankesh homicide, the SIT acquired a ballistics report from the Karnataka forensic science lab linking the homicide to the unsolved Kalburgi homicide.
Earlier in November 2015, the ballistic proof from the lab for the Kalburgi case had linked the Kannada scholar’s homicide to the taking pictures of the leftist thinker Govind Pansare, 81, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra on February 16, 2015, and Dabholkar, 69, in Pune on August 20, 2013.
The 2015 ballistics report, following evaluation of bullets and cartridges from the Pansare and Dabholkar homicide scenes, had acknowledged that two weapons had been used within the February 2015 taking pictures of Pansare and that one of many two weapons was used once more for the Dabholkar homicide whereas a second gun from the Pansare homicide taking pictures was used once more to kill Kalburgi in August 2015.
Based mostly on the evaluation of the ballistic forensics report it acquired within the Gauri Lankesh case and the sooner 2015 report for the Kalburgi homicide case, the Karnataka SIT got here to the conclusion that one group or gang was concerned within the 4 murders.
On the time, investigations in Maharashtra by the CBI within the Dabholkar case had already revealed the involvement of members of the novel Proper -wing outfit, the Sanatan Sanstha, within the 2013 homicide of the rationalist in Pune.
Second key breakthrough that offered leads for the Dabholkar case
On Might 31, 2018, the Karnataka SIT arrested 4 key leaders of the Proper-wing crime syndicate concerned within the Gauri Lankesh homicide primarily based on data gathered from a Proper-wing Hindutva activist whom the syndicate had recruited for a future homicide however whose path was picked up by the SIT throughout telephone interceptions.
The 4 who had been transferring round utilizing pretend identities and avoiding common communication techniques like cell phones had been Sujeet Kumar alias Praveen, now 38, Amol Kale alias Bhaisaab, 38, Amit Degwekar, 39 and Mohan Edave, 30.
Among the many 4 individuals who had been arrested it was discovered that Amol Kale, a former convenor of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti in Pune, was the important thing planner and organizer of the group. He was in possession of a diary with a number of data recorded in coded language.
Among the many names discovered within the diary was that of an individual recognized as “Builder” and one other particular person known as “Sir”. The particular person whose title was recorded as “Builder” was discovered to be Parshuram Waghmare, a former Sri Rama Sena activist from Vijayapura in Karnataka, who had been arrested a couple of years earlier for fomenting communal bother in his dwelling city.
The SIT investigations revealed that Waghmare was the shooter within the Gauri Lankesh homicide and that he was educated in utilizing weapons on a farm close to Belagavi and different secluded locations by Rajesh Bangera, 51, a authorities worker and gun fanatic from Kodagu in Karnataka who was the person recognized as “Sir” in Amol Kale’s diary.
The arrest of Parashuram Waghmare, now 30, on July 11, 2018, the next arrest of Ganesh Miskin, now 31, the rider of the bike that took the shooter to Gauri Lankesh’s home, and the arrest of Rajesh Bangera, the arms coach for the duo, in July 2018, opened the door on the identities of shooters within the group.
The important thing breakthrough
In keeping with officers of the Karnataka SIT, crucial breakthrough which led to the identification of the shooters within the Dabholkar homicide, from over 30 individuals recruited by the Proper-wing crime syndicate to hold out assassinations of individuals perceived as being anti-Hindu, was the July 2018 arrest of Rajesh Bangera alias Sir, the arms coach within the group.
“It was Bangera who recognized the individuals who had been behind the Dabholkar homicide. This data was handed on to the Maharashtra police,” SIT sources stated.
The investigation by the SIT discovered that Bangera educated completely different pairs of shooters for the homicide of Leftist thinker Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in February 2015 and the Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi in Dharwad on August 30, 2015. Each the circumstances are beneath trial.
“Bangera has carried out a couple of dozen arms coaching camps for teams comprising 4 to 5 individuals. He doesn’t know the place the providers of his trainees have been used however he can determine an individual he has educated if proven photos. He has been an vital catch,” SIT sources stated in July 2018 after Bangera’s arrest.
In August 2018, following the tip-off from the Karnataka SIT, the Maharashtra ATS arrested Sharad Kalaskar together with two others in reference to a Proper-wing terror plot.
The interrogation of Kalaskar revealed his position within the Dabholkar homicide together with that of his pal Sachin Andhure. Andhure was arrested in August 2018 by the CBI and Kalaskar was later arrested in September 2018 by the CBI for involvement within the Dabholkar homicide case.
Andhure and Kalaskar recognized Rajesh Bangera as the one that educated them to make use of weapons when photos of Bangera had been proven to them, sources within the Karnataka SIT stated.
The CBI, which probed the Dabholkar homicide, additionally took custody of Amol Kale, Amit Degwekar, and Rajesh Bangera, who’re accused within the Gauri Lankesh homicide case, and quizzed them over the Dabholkar homicide case however didn’t title any of them in its remaining chargesheet.
The SIT discovering on the motives for the murders
Gauri Lankesh was murdered by a bunch whose key members acted in line with rules and pointers outlined in a guide known as Kshatra Dharma Sadhana printed by the Sanatan Sanstha, the SIT has acknowledged in its cost sheet.
“The members of this organisation focused individuals who they recognized to be inimical to their perception and beliefs. The members strictly adopted the rules and rules talked about in ‘Kshatra Dharma Sadhana’, a guide printed by Sanatan Sanstha,” the SIT stated.
“Gauri Lankesh was murdered after she was recognized primarily based on her speeches and writings as a ‘Durjan (unhealthy particular person)’ as acknowledged within the Kshatra Dharma Sadhana of the Sanatan Sanstha,” the SIT stated.
The secretive group had members who had been “indoctrinated and actively underwent arms coaching, taking pictures apply and had been educated within the manufacture and use of bombs with the intention of selling insurgency and creating worry in society”, the SIT stated in 2018.
The bigger plot revealed by the SIT probe in Karnataka
Among the many main findings from the investigations by the Karnataka SIT into the homicide of the journalist Gauri Lankesh – other than the truth that 4 murders that occurred in Maharashtra and Karnataka over a four-year interval had been inter-linked – was the existence of a plot to coach and arm Proper-wing extremists to hold out acts within the title of faith within the nation.
Findings from the investigations of a number of businesses, together with the Karnataka SIT, reveals that individuals linked to the Abhinav Bharat group, who’re accused within the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Samjhauta Categorical, and Malegaon blasts of 2006-2008, educated many Sanatan Sanstha-linked males arrested within the Gauri Lankesh case to make bombs at camps held between 2011 to 2017.
One of many trainers on the camps attended by a few of the males accused or investigated within the Gauri Lankesh homicide has been recognized as Suresh Nair, who’s accused within the Ajmer dargah blast case of 2007 linked to the Abhinav Bharat group.
Nair is reported to have gone to coaching camps for Proper-wing extremists figuring out himself as “Babaji Sir”.
He was arrested in November 2018 on the premise of data generated by the SIT and the Gujarat ATS, police sources in Karnataka stated.
The evaluation of statements of three individuals accused within the September 5, 2017 homicide of journalist Gauri Lankesh, and the statements of as many as 4 individuals being handled as witnesses, reveals that 4 specialists – from outdoors the extremist group that’s accused of the homicide – offered coaching in camps the place bomb making was taught to recruits of the group.
Among the different “specialists” who educated members of the Sanatan Sanstha impressed proper wing crime syndicate which is accused within the Gauri Lankesh, Kalburgi, Pansare and Dabholkar murders are suspected to be a couple of lacking accused males from right-wing linked extremist assaults in India.