MUMBAI: Right-wing activist Sameer Gaikwad, accused of being a "co-conspirator" in the 2015 murder of rationalist and author Govind Pansare, died in Maharashtra's Sangli district in the early hours of Tuesday, officials said.
Gaikwad, 43, an alleged member of Sanatan Sanstha, was arrested in 2015 in the case. He was granted bail in 2017 and had been staying at his residence in Sangli.
He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival early on Tuesday, a police official said without giving more details.
Prima facie, Gaikwad died due to cardiac arrest, but police were waiting for the postmortem report to ascertain the exact cause of death, he said.
There is nothing suspicious, the official added.
Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015, in Maharashtra's Kolhapur and succumbed to his injuries a few days later on February 20.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was subsequently formed to investigate Pansare's murder, arrested Gaikwad in the case in September 2015.
In its chargesheet, the SIT had mentioned Gaikwad as a "co-conspirator" and alleged that he, along with other Sanatan Sanstha activists, eliminated Pansare.
The SIT had also conducted raids at Sanatan Sanstha's ashram in Panvel, Navi Mumbai, in connection with the case.
Pansare and his wife were returning home from their morning walk in the Samrat Nagar area of Kolhapur when two motorbike-borne men fired multiple rounds at them before fleeing in 2015.
Initially, the Rajarampuri police station in Kolhapur handled the case.
The investigation was later transferred to the SIT under the supervision of the Additional Director General of Police (CID), Maharashtra.
Dissatisfied with the lack of progress in tracing the shooters, Pansare's family had sought the case's transfer to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
On August 3, 2022, the HC transferred the probe to the ATS, observing there was "no headway" or "breakthrough" in the case.
Of the 12 accused identified, nine have so far been arrested, and four supplementary chargesheets have been filed.