BENGALURU: The Union Home Ministry has awarded ‘Medals for Excellence in Investigation’ to officers of the Karnataka Special Investigation Team (SIT) for their probe into the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.The SIT investigating officer, M N Anucheth, a Superintendent of Police (SP)-rank IPS officer, who is currently posted as DCP, Whitefield, along with two other SIT officers — Deputy SP T Rangappa and Inspector G C Raja — have received the medal.
The investigation into the Gauri case had given crucial leads in the previous assassinations of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare in Maharashtra and Kalburgi in Karnataka. While the Dabholkar case is being investigated by the CBI and the Maharashtra SIT is probing the Pansare case, the Kalburgi case is being probed by the Karnataka SIT under Supreme Court directions.
Apart from the SIT officers, former investigating officers from the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit in the CID — SP Jahnavi S, who is currently posted as Additional SP, Kolar, DySP K Ravishankar — have got the award for busting an inter-state human trafficking gang; and the then Circle Inspector of Malur Satish for investigating the rape and murder of a minor girl, which had led to the conviction of the accused Suresh Babu in a record 45 days.
MHA medal for solving inter-state trafficking
The SIT headed by Inspector General of Police B K Singh had cracked the Gauri murder case in which 16 of the 18 accused have been arrested so far. The investigation had unearthed the alleged involvement of right-wing hardliners of fringe groups based in Karnataka and Maharashtra, which had links with the Goa-based Sanatan Sanstha. Gauri was shot dead by Parashuram Waghmare on September 5, 2017, outside her house in Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, Jahnavi and Ravishankar, during their posting at CID, had cracked an inter-state human trafficking case in 2018 in which 13 people, including the main accused Abdul Kareem Rehman Qureshi from Mumbai, were arrested after the body of a trafficked victim Surinder Pal Singh from Hoshiarpur,Punjab was found in Ramanagaram.
The traffickers used to lure gullible people from Punjab with a promise of employment overseas. They would then bring them to Bengaluru, keep them in captivity and force them to make voice over Internet protocol calls to their families for funds ranging between Rs 20 and Rs 30 lakh. Surinder was killed after he refused to call his family.