New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the special investigation team set up by Karnataka government to probe the journalist Gauri Lankesh murder, to probe the murder of Kannada scholar M.M. Kalburgi also.
A Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Vineet Saran passed this order observing that there are similarities between the two murders and hence both should be probed by the same agency to be monitored by the Dharwad bench of the Karnataka High Court.
The order was passed in a petition filed by Umadevi Kalburgi, widow of M M Kalburgi, seeking CBI probe in the case. Both Karnataka and Maharashtra submitted the status of the probe being conducted. The Bench while entrusting the probe into the murder of Kalburgi asked the National Investigation Agency to file its status report on the missing accused in the case.
Ms. Umadevi in her petition had alleged that there was common link between the murders of her husband and that of activists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and Gauri Lankesh. CBI, which is investigating Dabholkar murder on directions of Bombay High Court, had informed a Court in Pune in August 2018 that the murders of Dabholkar and Lankesh were linked.
This submission was made when the agency was seeking the custody of one Sharad Kalaskar, who was nabbed in relation to the case. Dabholkar, a Pune-based anti-superstition activist, was shot dead while he was on morning walk in August 2013.
Govind Pansare, a CPI leader and author of the book "Who was Shivaji?” was shot dead in February 2015. Kalburgi, a professor and author, was shot dead in August 2015. Lankesh, a Bangalore based journalist, was shot dead in front of her residence in Bengaluru in September 2017.
It was alleged that the murders were handiworks of right-wing fundamentalists, who were opposed to the ideas expressed by the slain authors/activists. On December 11, last year, the apex court had suggested a CBI probe into the murders of Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh if there appeared a "common thread" in these incidents.
During the resumed hearing on Tuesday, Justice Nariman observed that if the four murders were linked, then they should be investigated by one agency. At this point, Karnataka government submitted that they have already constituted an SIT to probe Lankesh murder. Based on this, the Court ordered that the SIT to take over the investigation of Kalburgi case as well.
Ms. Umadevi sought an investigation by a special team of the Karnataka police, under the supervision of a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge. She said that since the three murders — of her husband, and activists in Maharashtra Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar — were inter-connected, a direction should be issued to Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, the CBI, and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to conduct a coordinated probe into Kalburgi’s murder.
She pointed out that the present probe for the last three years had not yielded any result despite assurances from the State that the “biggest manhunt” by the State CID was under way. She alleged that the same organisation and the very same shooters behind the murders of activists Govind Pansare on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur and Narendra Dabholkar on August 20, 2013 in Pune were behind her husband’s murder.
All the three were abused, threatened by certain sections of society,” she said. She said the same shooters might be involved in the Goa bomb blasts of 2009 and may have already fled the country. She feared that the probe into her husband’s murder would “casually drift towards its conclusion with the possibility of the offenders going unpunished”.
