Court expresses alarm at ‘dangerous trend’ of killing

Mumbai: The Bombay high court, while hearing the petition on the 2015 murder of Communist leader Govind Pansare in Kolhapur and that of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar in 2013 in Pune, said that between adjournments some ‘precious life’ had been lost. The bench referred to the gunning down of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru recently to reiterate its observations. “One more precious life was lost last month when in an unfortunate incident, a liberal, like-minded person was killed in Bengaluru,” said the bench.

The court also asked the state to expedite investigations in the Pansare and Dabholkar murder cases.

The investigating agencies have submitted chargesheets in the Dabholkar and Pansare cases, but the alleged shooters in both the cases are still on the run. A division bench of Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice Bharati Dangare was hearing petitions filed by the kin of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking an expeditious court-monitored probe into their murders. The petitioners had also aired apprehensions that the investigating agencies were not probing the role of the right-wing group Sanatan Sanstha in the killings.  

While allaying the apprehensions of the petitioners, the court said that the probe reports submitted by the agencies had not ignored the possible role of Sanatan Sanstha and they had examined all angles in their effort to nab the killers. “We cannot make details of the probe public but we can assure that the investigating agencies have probed every angle,” said the court.

The bench, while reiterating the suggestions of a previous bench, said that the agencies should adopt modern technology to track and nab Sarang Akolkar and Vinay Pawar, the two men identified by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as the shooters of Dabholkar who are absconding. The court further said that while the CBI and Criminal Investigation Department had submitted their probe reports, no concrete progress had been made.

Referring to the “dangerous trend” of eliminating all opposition and liberal values, the bench observed, “People are increasingly being targeted for their liberal principles. Not just thinkers, but any person or organisation that believes in liberal principles can be targeted. It’s like if there is some opposition to me, I must have that person eliminated (sic).”