How probe in 2017 Gauri Lankesh murder unlocked leads in 2013 killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar

The ballistic analysis reports for the two murders in Karnataka in 2015 and 2017, the SIT’s arrest of a man who plotted the murders, the discovery of a diary he kept with the coded names of shooters, trainers and logistics providers and the arrest of a shooter and trainer for the 2017 murder by the SIT — all of these contributed to the cracking of the Narendra Dabholkar murder case.

“The SIT shared information with the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad on the identities of the shooters in the Dabholkar case which emerged during the investigations of the Gauri Lankesh case. This facilitated the arrest of Sachin Andhure and Sharad Kalaskar in August 2018 by the ATS,” said a police officer of the Karnataka SIT which investigated the Lankesh murder.

In the Gauri Lankesh murder case, 17 persons linked to an organised right-wing crime syndicate — comprising former members of several radical Hindutva outfits like the Sanatan Sanstha and its affiliate the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, the Sri Rama Sena and the Shri Shivpratishthan Hindustan — are accused of targeting persons considered inimical to Hindutva.

One of the 17 accused in the Gauri Lankesh case is Sharad Kalaskar, who was convicted on Friday by a sessions court in Pune. The Gauri Lankesh case is still in the early trial stages.

First Karnataka SIT breakthrough that led to the cracking of Dabholkar case

One of the early breakthroughs in the Karnataka SIT investigations of the September 2017 murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh was a ballistics report from the Karnataka State Forensic Science Laboratory for the bullets fired at the journalist which said the gun used for the murder was the same gun that was used to shoot down the scholar Prof M M Kalburgi, 77, at the doorstep of his house in Dharwad two years before on the morning of August 30, 2015.

Nine days after the Gauri Lankesh murder, the SIT received a ballistics report from the Karnataka forensic science lab linking the murder to the unsolved Kalburgi murder.

Earlier in November 2015, the ballistic evidence from the lab for the Kalburgi case had linked the Kannada scholar’s murder to the shooting of the leftist thinker Govind Pansare, 81, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra on February 16, 2015, and Dabholkar, 69, in Pune on August 20, 2013.

The 2015 ballistics report, following analysis of bullets and cartridges from the Pansare and Dabholkar murder scenes, had stated that two guns were used in the February 2015 shooting of Pansare and that one of the two guns was used again for the Dabholkar murder while a second gun from the Pansare murder shooting was used again to kill Kalburgi in August 2015.

Based on the analysis of the ballistic forensics report it received in the Gauri Lankesh case and the earlier 2015 report for the Kalburgi murder case, the Karnataka SIT came to the conclusion that one group or gang was involved in the four murders.

At the time, investigations in Maharashtra by the CBI in the Dabholkar case had already revealed the involvement of members of the radical Right -wing outfit, the Sanatan Sanstha, in the 2013 murder of the rationalist in Pune.

Second key breakthrough that provided leads for the Dabholkar case

On May 31, 2018, the Karnataka SIT arrested four key leaders of the Right-wing crime syndicate involved in the Gauri Lankesh murder based on information gathered from a Right-wing Hindutva activist whom the syndicate had recruited for a future murder but whose trail was picked up by the SIT during phone interceptions.

The four who were moving around using fake identities and avoiding regular communication systems like mobile phones were Sujeet Kumar alias Praveen, now 38, Amol Kale alias Bhaisaab, 38, Amit Degwekar, 39 and Mohan Edave, 30.

Among the four persons who were arrested it was found that Amol Kale, a former convenor of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti in Pune, was the key planner and organizer of the group. He was in possession of a diary with a lot of information recorded in coded language.

Among the names found in the diary was that of a person identified as “Builder” and another person referred to as “Sir”. The person whose name was recorded as “Builder” was found to be Parshuram Waghmare, a former Sri Rama Sena activist from Vijayapura in Karnataka, who had been arrested a few years earlier for fomenting communal trouble in his home town.

The SIT investigations revealed that Waghmare was the shooter in the Gauri Lankesh murder and that he was trained in using guns on a farm near Belagavi and other secluded places by Rajesh Bangera, 51, a government employee and gun enthusiast from Kodagu in Karnataka who was the man identified as “Sir” in Amol Kale’s diary.

The arrest of Parashuram Waghmare, now 30, on July 11, 2018, the subsequent arrest of Ganesh Miskin, now 31, the rider of the motorcycle that took the shooter to Gauri Lankesh’s house, and the arrest of Rajesh Bangera, the arms trainer for the duo, in July 2018, opened the door on the identities of shooters in the group.

The key breakthrough

According to officials of the Karnataka SIT, the most important breakthrough which led to the identification of the shooters in the Dabholkar murder, from over 30 people recruited by the Right-wing crime syndicate to carry out assassinations of persons perceived as being anti-Hindu, was the July 2018 arrest of Rajesh Bangera alias Sir, the arms trainer in the group.

“It was Bangera who identified the persons who were behind the Dabholkar murder. This information was passed on to the Maharashtra police,” SIT sources said.

The investigation by the SIT found that Bangera trained different pairs of shooters for the murder of Leftist thinker Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in February 2015 and the Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi in Dharwad on August 30, 2015. Both the cases are under trial.

“Bangera has conducted about a dozen arms training camps for groups comprising four to five persons. He does not know where the services of his trainees have been used but he can identify a person he has trained if shown pictures. He has been an important catch,” SIT sources said in July 2018 after Bangera’s arrest.

In August 2018, following the tip-off from the Karnataka SIT, the Maharashtra ATS arrested Sharad Kalaskar along with two others in connection with a Right-wing terror plot.

The interrogation of Kalaskar revealed his role in the Dabholkar murder along with that of his friend Sachin Andhure. Andhure was arrested in August 2018 by the CBI and Kalaskar was later arrested in September 2018 by the CBI for involvement in the Dabholkar murder case.

Andhure and Kalaskar identified Rajesh Bangera as the person who trained them to use guns when pictures of Bangera were shown to them, sources in the Karnataka SIT said.

The CBI, which probed the Dabholkar murder, also took custody of Amol Kale, Amit Degwekar, and Rajesh Bangera, who are accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case, and quizzed them over the Dabholkar murder case but did not name any of them in its final chargesheet.

The SIT finding on the motives for the murders

Gauri Lankesh was murdered by a group whose key members acted according to principles and guidelines outlined in a book called Kshatra Dharma Sadhana published by the Sanatan Sanstha, the SIT has stated in its charge sheet.

“The members of this organisation 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.

“Gauri Lankesh was murdered after she was identified based on her speeches and writings as a ‘Durjan (bad person)’ as stated in the Kshatra Dharma Sadhana of the Sanatan Sanstha,” the SIT said.

The secretive group had members who were “indoctrinated and actively underwent arms training, shooting practice and were trained in the manufacture and use of bombs with the intention of promoting insurgency and creating fear in society”, the SIT said in 2018.

The larger plot revealed by the SIT probe in Karnataka

Among the major findings from the investigations by the Karnataka SIT into the murder of the journalist Gauri Lankesh – apart from the fact that four murders that occurred in Maharashtra and Karnataka over a four-year period were inter-linked – was the existence of a plot to train and arm Right-wing extremists to carry out acts in the name of religion in the country.

Findings from the investigations of multiple agencies, including the Karnataka SIT, reveals that persons linked to the Abhinav Bharat group, who are accused in the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Samjhauta Express, and Malegaon blasts of 2006-2008, trained many Sanatan Sanstha-linked men arrested in the Gauri Lankesh case to make bombs at camps held between 2011 to 2017.

One of the trainers at the camps attended by some of the men accused or investigated in the Gauri Lankesh murder has been identified as Suresh Nair, who is accused in the Ajmer dargah blast case of 2007 linked to the Abhinav Bharat group.

Nair is reported to have gone to training camps for Right-wing extremists identifying himself as “Babaji Sir”.

He was arrested in November 2018 on the basis of information generated by the SIT and the Gujarat ATS, police sources in Karnataka said.

The analysis of statements of three persons accused in the September 5, 2017 murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, and the statements of as many as four persons being treated as witnesses, reveals that four experts – from outside the extremist group that is accused of the murder – provided training in camps where bomb making was taught to recruits of the group.

Some of the other “experts” who trained members of the Sanatan Sanstha inspired right wing crime syndicate which is accused in the Gauri Lankesh, Kalburgi, Pansare and Dabholkar murders are suspected to be a few missing accused men from right-wing linked extremist attacks in India.