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Journalism of Courage
THE PROSECUTION in the ongoing trial in the murder of Dr Narendra Dabholkar began its final arguments in the case on Tuesday.
Special Public Prosecutor Prakash Suryavanshi presented the arguments to establish the motive, the act of murder and also about the non-recovery of weapon and motorcycle used in the murder.
The rationalist and founder of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS) was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants on the VR Shinde bridge in Pune on August 20, 2013.
The accused who are being tried for the murder include include ENT surgeon Dr Virendrasinh Tawade, who was chargesheeted in September 2016; the two alleged shooters, Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar, who were chargesheeted in February 2019; Mumbai-based lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar and his aide Vikram Bhave, who were chargesheeted by in November 2019. All the accused are allegedly linked to radical outfit Sanatan Sanstha.
A special court in Pune had on September 15, 2021, framed the charges against these five accused, marking the beginning of the trial.
All the five accused had pleaded not guilty to charges against them.
While Tawade, Andure and Kalaskar are currently in prison, Bhave and Punalekar are out on bail.
The case which was initially probed by the Pune City Police was taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation in June 2014.
On Tuesday, Special Public Prosecutor Adv Suryavanshi began his final argument in the court of Additional Sessions Judge PP Jadhav.
Suryavanshi began by explaining the prosecution case. Subsequently he presented arguments on the points of the motive.
For this, Suryavanshi referred to the depositions of Dr Dabholkar’s son Dr Hamid, MANS member Prashant Potdar and Hindutva activist Sanjay Sadvilkar.
On the point of the act of murder, Suryavanshi referred to the witnesses of a police officer, who was at the time of the murder posted at Deccan Gymkhana police station and was the complainant in the case, and two eye-witnesses who during the trial of the case identified the two alleged shooters.
He then presented arguments on the photo identification of the accused.
Suryavanshi then presented the prosecution case on the point of the FIR and also an extra judicial confession by Andure made to a restaurant owner in Aurangabad about having killed Dr Dabholkar.
He also argued the case on the points of the findings in the postmortem and the non-recovery of weapon and motorcycle used in the crime.
Adv Suryavanshi told The Indian Express that in the next hearing in the case, which is scheduled to take place on February 17, he will be presenting his arguments against those made by the defence and also on the law points referred to in the case.
