Narendra Dabholkar case: 5 cops deputed near murder site were missing

A Pune police squad of five officers, including two women constables and a sub-inspector in a supervisory role, had been deputed to be present and conduct a nakabandi at the spot where rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead by two bike-borne men on August 20, 2013. However, none of the officers were there at the spot when the murder occurred and they arrived later, a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe has revealed.

The squad had been assigned to conduct a nakabandi at the Omkareshwar bridge’s corner from 6 am to 11 am on August 20 2013, in a discreet drive to nab chain-snatchers, but four of its members allegedly arrived almost 90 minutes late, between 7.30 am to 7.45 am, said a source who is familiar with the findings of the probe by the CBI. The agency had recently submitted its chargesheet against the member of a right-wing group, Dr Virendra Tawade.

The murder happened around 7.25 am on the footpath of Omkareshwar bridge. The bridge is located close to the Shaniwar Peth police post, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Vishrambaug police station. Dabholkar was out on a morning walk at this time.

The fifth member of the squad, the sub-inspector, was resting inside the police post and was talking to his wife via a landline connection when the shots were fired, and he subsequently reached the crime scene when an eye-witness had approached him for help. A woman constable, who should have been at the bridge since 6 am that morning, told the CBI that she arrived there at 7.30 am then called up her husband to bring to her the ‘lathi’ she had forgotten at home.

The CBI, via her cellphone’s location, could establish that the constable had in fact reached the bridge at 7.45 am, not 7.30 am. Another squad member told the CBI that she reached at 7.30 am as she got delayed because of Raksha Bandhan, which was being celebrated on the day.

The sub-inspector in his statement to the CBI said when he received the information about Dabholkar being fired at, he was at the police post near the bridge. “There was no nakabandi there. The nakabandi team reached much later,” the source said. The sub-inspector, who named the four members of the nakabandi team whose supervision was his assigned task, said he was the “first officer” to reach the crime scene. The sub-inspector had been on duty for the past 18 hours with an intervening two-hour break. “By the time the five police men reached the spot, Dabholkar had already been fired at by the two shooters who subsequently fled,” said the source. “Had the policemen been there, conducting the nakabandi on time, the crime could have been averted as the shooters would have been deterred. They have been absconding since,” he said.