BENGALURU: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder of senior journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh has stumbled upon the shocking details of the murder conspiracy by the accused before they eliminated the journalist on September 5, 2017, outside her home in RR Nagar. According to a source, the accused including Parashuram Waghmore, the suspect shooter who pulled the trigger on Gauri, Ganesh Miski, Amol Kale, Manohar Yavade, KT Naveen Kumar alias Hotte Manja and Praveen Kumar rented an ACB police inspector's house on Kadabagere cross on Magadi Road where they allegedly conspired the murder.
The investigations further revealed that neither of the accused were aware of the identity of the owner of the house nor did the owner have any idea of the accused's background, the source said. The SIT team which has summoned the inspector for questioning learnt that the house was in the inspector's wife's name and their relatives were taking care of the tenancy of the building.
The accused is said to have chosen the building for it had a number of apartments and was not surrounded by other buildings. “They were very careful about choosing the building. They looked for a place not surrounded by other buildings and had low footfall in the area so that no-one could get suspicious of them,” a senior SIT officer said.
While the accused were living together till the day Gauri was murdered, they began vacating the house one by one after the murder. While Waghmore and Miski reportedly vacated the house on September 6, 2017, the other accused stayed at the house for 15 more days to make sure nobody's suspicions would be aroused.
Stay and exit, carefully planned
The accused were not only specific about the building they wanted to stay in, they planned their exit carefully. One of the accused is said to have told Waghmore and Miski to leave the city on day after the murder, while asking others to stay back. The accused were following the news reports carefully and were aware of STI’s move to check all the tenants who had rented houses, days before the murder and vacated the next day or on the following days. The accused had planned to stay back to ensure no one smells anything fishy and gets suspicious about them.
Summon notice to four
The SIT on Saturday is said to have issued a summons notice to four persons in Sullia after they learnt about the accused acquaintance with them. The SIT has sent the notice to Mohan Chantal, Yateesh, Yatin and Kumudaksh, all residents of Sullia, a source said. However, the SIT did not officially confirm the news. The source further added saying that SIT has no information about the role of the four persons in the murder but for the fact that they knew the arrested-accused.
