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Journalism of Courage
This is an archive article published on August 7, 2022
M M Kalburgi murder case: Store owner identifies bike rider involved in crime
The store owner is the third eye-witness to identify the assailants involved in the killing of Kalburgi. The trial in the Kalburgi murder case began earlier this year and prosecution witnesses are being examined by a sessions court in Dharwad.
Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi was shot outside his house in Dharwad on August 30, 2015. (File)
An independent witness in the murder case of M M Kalburgi identified a motorcycle rider, who brought the shooter to the Kannada scholar’s house, during the trial of the case in a Sessions Court in Dharwad Saturday.
The witness, who owned a small store opposite the home of Kalburgi, identified Praveen Chatur as the man who was waiting outside on a motorcycle when the murder was committed in 2015. Chatur was part of a radical right-wing organised crime syndicate comprising members from fringe groups.
The store owner is the third eye-witness to identify the assailants involved in the killing of Kalburgi. The trial in the Kalburgi murder case began earlier this year and prosecution witnesses are being examined by a sessions court in Dharwad.
On March 17, Kalburgi’s daughter Roopadarshi K, who was present at her father’s home on the day he was murdered, broke down in the court after identifying Ganesh Miskin as the man who shot her father. She also identified Praveen Chatur as the man who was waiting for the shooter on a motorcycle outside the house.
The scholar’s wife Umadevi also identified Miskin when she was produced as a prosecution witness in March. The three witnesses who have identified Miskin and Chatur as the assailants had earlier identified them during test identification parades conducted during the investigation phase.
Miskin, who is linked to a right-wing extremist outfit created by radical members of groups like the Sanatan Sanstha and its affiliate the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, is also an accused in the shooting case of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017.
Chatur, the accomplice in the shooting of Kalburgi, is also associated with a fringe right-wing group and is accused in cases of attacks on cinema theatres in Belagavi of Karnataka during the screening of the controversial film Padmavat in 2018.
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Miskin and Chatur were arrested by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka Police that was initially constituted to probe the murder of Gauri Lankesh.
The probe in the Lankesh murder revealed that the case was closely linked to the murder of Kalburgi and those of two progressive thinkers in Maharashtra—Narendra Dabholkar in August 2013 and Govind Pansare in February 2015.
The others accused in the Kalburgi case are Amol Kale, a former convenor of the Sanatan Sanstha’s Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and key leader of the extremist group involved in targeted assassinations between 2013 to 2017; Vasudev Suryavanshi, a motorcycle mechanic who stole bikes for the murders, Sharad Kalaskar, the alleged shooter in the Dabholkar murder case and Amit Baddi, a Hubli associate of the alleged shooter Miskin who provided logistics for the murder.
The SIT filed its charge sheet in the Kalburgi murder case in August 2019.
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