Gauri Lankesh murder: Country-made firearm used to kill activist: Forensics

Bengaluru: The forensics report on journalist, editor and activist Gauri Lankesh who was shot dead on Tuesday reveal that the killer used a country made firearm, raising the possibility that her killers could be Naxalites, although investigators refused to categorically blame the ultras this early in the probe.

Sources with access to the forensics report told this newspaper on Wednesday, that after a two hour post-mortem conducted on the slain journalist at the city's Victoria Hospital, the autopsy showed three bullet injuries to her body.

"The injuries do not match with injuries inflicted by a conventional or branded firearm," the autopsy report concluded. This raises "the possibility that the killers may not be from the same group as those who eliminated Prof M.M. Kalburgi, who was shot dead with a 7.65mm caliber pistol,” an official source on condition of anonymity, said.

According to Gauri's autopsy report she was fatally shot from the back, with two bullets showing clear entry and exit wounds. It was however the third bullet that would claim her life as it entered the right side of her chest from the back.

“The bullet pierced the upper portion of the lower lobe of the left lung. It then hit and lacerated the liver and pierced the left atrium and left ventricle of the heart before it exited through the sixth inter-costal space (between two ribs) of the left breast. There was a lot of blood clot in the left and right side of the chest cavity and the pericardial cavity. This fatal bullet injury is not a trademark of a conventional or branded weapon. It was caused by an unconventional weapon,” the expert source added.