Maharashtra SIT team to question accused in Lankesh case

Mumbai: A team of Maharashtra’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the February 2015 murder of CPI leader Govind Pansare in Kolhapur, has reached Bengaluru to question the six accused arrested by the Karnataka police in the September 2017 Gauri Lankesh murder case. The questioning of the Lankesh case accused will be done to seek clues that could help crack the Pansare case, in which two alleged killers, Sarang Akolkar and Vinay Pawar, are on the run. According to sources, the SIT would focus especially on the alleged Lankesh shooter, Parashuram Waghmare, and Amol Kale, who is from Pune.

“The SIT team has reached Bangalore to question the arrested accused in the Lankesh case. Details may emerge in the questioning that can prove useful for our probe,” said a Maharashtra police source.

The SIT team will seek details from the documents and articles seized from the Lankesh case accused that may be of interest to them. It will be verified if the Lankesh case accused knew some of the Pansare case suspects, said another source. According to police sources, among the seizures from the Lankesh accused were a diary that has code names and details on potential targets in Karn-ataka and elsewhere.

As per forensic tests, a single country-made fire-arm was used in the Lankesh, Pansare and the August 2015 murder of Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi. The weapon could not be traced so far.  

Editor-publisher Lankesh was shot dead by one of the two men who arrived at her residence on a bike. Pansare was also shot by two assailants who came near his residence on a bike.