Gauri Lankesh murder case: Evidence witness recounts finding of bullets from shooter’s training site in Belagavi forest

Waghmare, a former member of right-wing outfit Sri Rama Sene, and Kalaskar who was associated with the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and was convicted recently for the 2013 murder of Maharashtra rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, 69, are among 17 persons from right-wing crime syndicate arrested by a Karnataka Police SIT for the Lankesh murder.

Kalaskar, who was the alleged shooter, along with Sachin Andhure, in the 2013 murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune, is alleged to have provided a round of training to a set of shooters identified for the Gauri Lankesh murder, including Waghmare, a few months before the murder.

During the trial, the mahazar witness described his enlistment as an independent witness in September 2018 and the visit to the Kineye forest to find evidence.

The witness told the court that experts divided the region in the forest – indicated by Kalaskar as the place where the arms training occurred – into grades, and searched for metal objects using metal detectors around trees that were used as targets.

The witness authenticated the finding of seven empty cartridges and five fired bullets during the search operation in the Kineye forest in September 2018.

The witness was also taken to a farm near Belagavi where Kalaskar reported that the right-wing group had conducted an explosives training camp with the use of circuit bombs a few months earlier but no remnant evidence was found at the spot indicated by Kalaskar.

Earlier In the trial, a ballistics expert from the Karnataka Forensic Science Laboratory had reported the finding of empty cartridges and bullets of the 7.65 mm calibre in the Kineye forest region in Belagavi.

The expert also reported that the ballistic analysis of the cartridges and bullets found at the training site matched with some of the bullets and cartridges found at the crime scene following the murder of Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru.

The forensic report by the ballistics expert helped the SIT establish the fact that a 7.65-mm pistol used to gun down Gauri Lankesh was in the possession of the right-wing group at the training sessions conducted a few months prior to the murder.

The bullets and cartridges found at the forest training site when analysed at the Karnataka Forensic Science lab revealed that one bullet and one cartridge have the same features found on four bullets fired at Gauri Lankesh outside her home, indicating that the same 7.65-mm country-made pistol was fired at the two sites.

Lankesh was killed on September 5, 2017, by a gunman who fired four bullets at her while she was opening the gate to her home. Following the murder, police seized three bullets that hit her, one that missed, and four empty cartridges.

The right-wing crime syndicate involved in the Gauri Lankesh murder is also allegedly linked to the murders of leftist thinker Govind Pansare in Maharashtra and scholar M M Kalburgi in Karnataka, besides that of Narendra Dabholkar.

“The members of this organization targeted persons who they identified to be inimical to their belief and ideology. The members strictly followed the guidelines and principles mentioned in ‘Kshatra Dharma Sadhana’, a book published by Sanatan Sanstha,” the SIT said after it filed a charge sheet against the accused in the Lankesh case on November 23, 2018.

Soon after the murder of Lankesh, the bullets and cartridges used in the crime were sent for forensic analysis and comparison with bullets and cartridges from the shooting of Kalburgi, 77, in Dharwad on August 30, 2015.

A September 2017 ballistics report provided to the SIT by the Karnataka FSL reported that the ballistic analysis in the two cases had revealed that Kalburgi and Lankesh were killed with the same 7.65 mm calibre gun.

Forensic analysis in 2015 by the Karnataka FSL of bullets and cartridges in the Kalburgi case with those seized from the scene of the shooting of Leftist thinker Govind Pansare, 81, and his wife in Kolhapur, Maharashtra on February 16, 2015, showed that one of two 7.65 mm guns used to shoot the Pansares was used to shoot Kalburgi in August 2015.

The trial of the 17 persons from the right-wing extremist syndicate arrested for the murder of Gauri Lankesh started in July 2022. Apart from murder charges, the accused have also been charged under the stringent Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes Act, 2000.

All the accused have, however, been granted bail over the last year by courts in Karnataka after the Supreme Court on August 20, 2024, upheld the grant of bail to one of the 17 accused on the grounds of a delay in the trial. The accused, Kalaskar, who allegedly provided training to the shooters in the Kineye forest was granted bail earlier this month by a trial court.