BENGALURU:As suspicions of the same gang’s involvement in the murders of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh and rationalists Dr M M Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare grow stronger, officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Maharashtra Special Investigation Team (SIT) carried out marathon interrogation sessions of the accused and three suspects in the Gauri Lankesh murder case through Saturday.
The CBI is probing the murder of Dabholkar while the Maharashtra SIT is investigating Pansare’s murder. Sources in the Karnataka SIT said as there were fresh leads pointing to the same gang’s involvement in the murders and to use of the same weapon, CBI and Maharashtra SIT teams have landed in the city, hopeful that the arrests made so far would turn out to be ‘prize catches’ leading to cracking all the four sensational murders.
The state SIT had arrested Sujith Kumar alias Praveen in connection with the Gauri Lankesh murder and then taken other three suspects — Amol Kale alias Bhaisaab and Amit Degwekar alias Pradeep Mahajan, both hailing from Maharashtra, and Manohar Dundappa Yadave alias Manoj of Vijayapura — into
custody.
Officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Maharashtra Special Investigation Team (SIT) carried out marathon interrogation sessions of the accused and three suspects in the Gauri Lankesh murder case through Saturday.“All the four persons were thoroughly interrogated by the Maharashtra SIT and the CBI officials. The questioning started on Saturday morning and continued till evening. They have questioned the suspects separately to probe their involvement in both the murder cases in Maharashtra and have corroborated their statements,” a source in the SIT told The New Indian Express.
Also, the officials of the CID team investigating Kalburgi’s murder questioned the four on Sunday. It is learnt that the SIT Chief Investigation Officer M N Anucheth is in constant touch with the CID team and is also guiding them on how to take the case forward.The letters and e-mails exchanged by the suspects in the case are said to be in Marathi and the police are translating them into Kannada with the help of an expert, source said.
The paramount importance of these investigators, however, is to find out the mastermind behind these killings and the shooters. The SIT team is on the lookout for Dada alias Nihal, an absconding accused in the case related to conspiring to murder Prof. K S Bhagwan, a Mysuru-based rationalist. Police custody of Praveen, Kale, Degwekar and Yadave will end on Monday and the SIT will produce them before a court.It is likely that the SIT will ask for extension of their police custody.