Pansare murder: HC seeks CID progress report, kin seek transfer of case to ATS
While Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013, Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015, near his house in Kolhapur. He died four days later. The CBI is investigating the Dabholkar case while the state SIT is probing Pansare's murder.
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Govind PansareTHE BOMBAY High Court on Thursday asked the Maharashtra Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to submit a report on the progress made by its special investigation team (SIT) since 2020 into the 2015 killing of activist and CPI leader Govind Pansare.
Pansare’s daughter Smita and daughter-in-law Megha also moved an application seeking transfer of the probe to the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS). The HC issued notice the state in connection to the plea.
Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice V G Bisht, which was hearing the plea filed by Pansare’s daughter Smita Pansare, was told by advocate Abhay Nevagi that the state police is yet to make any breakthrough in the case even after seven years of the killing.
Last March, after being pulled up for delaying probe in the cases pertaining to the murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar (2013) and Pansare, the CBI and the SIT of the state police had informed the HC that they were agreeable to commencement of trial in both cases though investigation was still under way. The agencies had also informed the court that they had withdrawn the application that sought a stay on commencement of the trial.
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While Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013, Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015, near his house in Kolhapur. He died four days later. The CBI is investigating the Dabholkar case while the state SIT is probing Pansare’s murder.
The HC has been hearing two pleas and several other applications filed by Smita Pansare and Mukta Dabholkar, the kin of the late activists, seeking court-monitored probes.
On Thursday, Nevagi told HC that there is a larger conspiracy in the murders of Pansare and other activists, including Dabholkar, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, as all the cases are “linked”. He added that since Dabholkar’s trial has commenced, that investigation cannot be transferred, but a probe into Pansare’s death can be transferred to the ATS.
“Let them (state CID) first give the status report from 2020 to 2022 (in the Pansare case),” the HC said.
The HC is likely to hear the pleas of the kin on July 21.
Meanwhile, the HC permitted the state to relieve Additional SP Tirupati Kakade, the current investigating officer (IO) of the Pansare case – who is due for transfer – after heading the probe for over four-and-a-half years.
Allowing the state’s request to relieve Kakade, the HC said that a new IO must be appointed within four weeks and only then Kakade can take charge of his new posting.
As per an earlier HC directive, no officer investigating the Pansare and Dabholkar cases could be changed or transferred without its permission.
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