Sources said that two people in Vijayapura were taken into custody for interrogation by the SIT team, but police sources did not confirm it.
Bengaluru: Still without clues a month after the shocking murder of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh, the Special Investigation Team is focusing on Vijayapura and its adjoining areas after it got information that the country-made revolver which the killer used to shoot down Gauri was smuggled from Vijayapura or its adjoining areas.
Sources said that the police do not have any definite clues that the country-made revolver was brought from Vijayapura, but they have information that the bike-borne men who opened fire on Bengaluru APMC president K. Srinivas in February this year had used revolvers which were supplied from Vijayapura. But the police sources did not disclose any information on the ongoing investigation in Vijayapura, but said that the police team is trying to catch some suspects.
In the past, country-made revolvers smuggled to Vijayapura from North India were allegedly used by gangster to carry out attacks on their rivals in Vijayapura and surrounding areas.
Sources said that many gangsters in the region were smuggling revolvers into Vijayapura from other areas, but the gang clashes have virtually stopped in Vijayapura in recent times after the brutal killing of Fayaz Mushrif, a nephew of former mayor Sajjadepeer Mushrif in November 2014. Prior to that, several gangs in Kalaburagi and Vijayapura were clashing at regular intervals and allegedly used country-made revolvers during those attacks.
Sources said that two people in Vijayapura were taken into custody for interrogation by the SIT team, but police sources did not confirm it.
Gauri murder probe unsatisfactory: Forum
Pressurising the government to intensify the investigation into the assassination of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh, writer K. Neela on Monday said that the probe into the murder of Gauri is “unsatisfactory” as the Special Investigation Team (SIT) has not made any breakthrough in the case almost a month after the murder.
At a press meet organised by the Forum Against the Assassination of Gauri Lankesh, Neela demanded that the government should not only catch the killers of Gauri, but also expose the sponsors and organisation behind the act and ban such organisations.
She condemned the celebration of Gauri’s murder on social media platforms and asked the police to take stern action against perpetrators. “We have already submitted a list of such trolls to the police. But so far, only one or two have been detained,” she said.
She said, “The killing of M.M. Kalburgi had already created a sense of fear in the state. But, two years have passed and his killers are still on the prowl. Now, the assassins of Gauri have created an atmosphere of terror. I am afraid that this case too will meet the same fate as Kalburgi’s, if the SIT does not speed up the investigation.”
The forum demanded that the governments should term killings of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh as acts of terror. Though forum members did not directly point at the involvement of any organisation, they said that the people celebrating her death endorse the Sangh Parivar ideology.
