Bengaluru: The government on Monday handed over the investigation into the cold-blooded murder of the septuagenarian Kannada scholar M.M. Kalburgi, to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Director General of Police Kishore Chandra confirmed.
Describing it as “a well planned murder by hired professional killers,” official sources said “it’s a supari killing going by the manner in which it was executed.”
The assassins knew Dr Kalburgi’s routine and attacked him at a time, when he was at home with his family, they said. “The element of surprise and the precision with which the murder was executed shows the assailants were professional killers,” sources said.
Besides the alleged involvement of right-wing hardliners from whom Dr Kalburgi had received death threats, Hubbali-Dharwad police have sought information from Pune police on two copy-cat murders.
The first, that of Maharashtra’s anti-superstition activist and rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, shot dead on August 20, 2013 by two motorcycle-borne men while he was out for a morning walk.
The second, the murder of Communist Party of India leader and rationalist Govindrao Pansare “The police have sought information from Kolhapur police regarding Pansare, shot by unidentified assailants in February this year, when he and his wife were on their morning walk. The modus operandi in all three cases is similar,” said an officer.
Dharwad police say the assailant, who had come on a motorcycle with his accomplice shot Dr Kalburgi at point blank range on his forehead from a 7.65 mm country made gun in his living room. Ballistic experts from Forensic Science Laboratory, Bengaluru recovered two empty cartridges from the crime scene on Monday.
Meanwhile in Mangaluru, Bantwal police on Monday arrested Bhuvith Shetty for his controversial statement on twitter on the death of M.M. Kalburgi.
