On August 20 this year, it will be 10 years since anti-superstition crusader and rationalist Dr Narendra Achyut Dabholkar was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants on V R Shinde Bridge in Pune. While the trial against the five accused charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is nearing conclusion, the search for one of the most crucial pieces of evidence – the murder weapon – has not only been unsuccessful but has been marred by contradictions, controversies and confusions.
Dabholkar was the founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (ANIS), which has been fighting against superstitions in society for several years. His murder and three more similar killings – of Communist leader Govind Pansare in February 2015, Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi in August 2015 and Bengaluru journalist Gauri Lankesh in September 2017 – sparked a nationwide debate on issues surrounding the freedom of speech and various hostile forces against rational thinking. The investigating agencies suspect that the murders are closely linked and not only have common perpetrators but also common weapons.
The Dabholkar murder case was initially investigated by the Pune city police. In June 2014, the CBI took over the probe.
Failure in tracing the murder weapon
A crucial revelation in connection to the firearm used in the Dabholkar murder came as recently as April 12 this year when retired CBI officer SR Singh, who investigated the murder, told the trial court in Pune during his cross-examination that efforts to recover the weapon used in the crime continued even after all the accused were charge-sheeted in November 2019, but the search has been “unsuccessful”.
The Dabholkar murder case was initially investigated by the Pune city police. In June 2014, the CBI took over the probe. (Express photo by Ashish Kale)
The revelation holds significance in the light of reports from March 2020 about the recovery of parts of a pistol from a creek off the Arabian Sea near Thane during a search for four weapons suspected to have been dismantled and dumped by the alleged shooter Sharad Kalaskar in July 2018.
The CBI had said at the time that it had sent the recovered weapon – which was the rusted main body of a country-made pistol – for forensic and ballistic analysis.
Murder weapon: Initial theories, controversies
One of the earliest developments in the probe surrounding the murder weapon came with the arrest of Manish Nagori, an alleged firearms peddler, and his aide Vilas Khandelwal in January 2014 by the Pune city police. But prior to this, the two had a contentious arrest history.
The duo was already in jail since they were arrested by the Thane police’s Crime Branch at 4 pm on August 20, 2013 in an extortion case. This arrest had taken place just hours after Dabholkar’s murder.
In October 2013, Nagori and Khandelwal were transferred to the custody of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and 40 illegal firearms were allegedly recovered from them. A ballistic examination of one of those firearms purportedly suggested that it matched the ‘markings’ on a cartridge seized from the Dabholkar murder spot in Pune.
After the ATS wrote to the Pune police about this, the Pune cops arrested Nagori, Khandelwal and two others, but initially in connection with an old case. Later the two were charged with the Dabholkar killing as well as for the murder of an unidentified man in a Pune suburb.
When Nagori and Khandelwal were produced in court on January 21, 2014, they claimed that then ATS chief Rakesh Maria had offered them Rs 25 lakh for confessing to Dabholkar’s murder. However, during later hearings, they said that their allegations against Maria were an “emotional outburst”. After a few months, both were released on bail by the court and were never charge-sheeted in the Dabholkar case. The CBI never linked them to the Dabholkar murder.
CBI probe, contradictory claims
While the Pune city police messed up the investigation by arresting Nagori and Khandelwal, the CBI too contradicted its probe by putting two different versions before the court about the persons who opened fire at Dabholkar.
The central agency first arrested Sanatan Sanstha member and ENT surgeon Dr Virendrasinh Tawade in the Dabholkar murder case on June 10, 2016. Tawade’s arrest was based on a witness statement by a Hindutva activist and metallurgy craftsman Sanjay Sadvilkar from Kolhapur.
In September 2016, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Tawade in which absconding Sanatan Sanstha members Sarang Akolkar and Vinay Pawar were named as the two assailants who shot Dabholkar. This chargesheet claimed that Tawade and Akolkar had a meeting with Sadvilkar in 2013. It was stated that Tawade allegedly wanted to manufacture weapons with Sadvilkar’s help and “Akolkar had, for this purpose, brought samples of a country-made pistol and a country-made revolver of high quality.”
In this chargesheet, the CBI also stated that Tawade conspired with Pawar and Akolkar to kill Dabholkar “owing to the ideological differences between ANIS and Sanatan Sanstha”.
But questions were raised about the CBI probe and Sadvilkar as the agency contradicted its earlier claim and named Hindutva activists Sachin Prakashrao Andure and Sharad Kalaskar, arrested in August 2018, as the two shooters who had opened fire at Dabholkar.
Kalaskar was among the Hindutva activists arrested by the Maharashtra ATS on August 10, 2018 in the Nalasopara arms haul case, following clues obtained from the Karnataka Police probe into Gauri Lankesh’s murder. Their interrogation allegedly revealed Andure and Kalaskar’s involvement in the Dabholkar murder.
In May 2019, CBI arrested Mumbai-based Sanatan Sanstha lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar and his aide Vikram Bhave. While the above five have been charge-sheeted so far by the CBI, Punalekar is currently out on bail and the other four are in prison.
On September 15 last year, the special court set up for cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act framed charges against Tawade, Andure, Kalaskar and Bhave for murder, conspiracy to commit murder along with Section 16 of the UAPA pertaining to terrorist acts, and various provisions of the Arms Act for the use of firearms.
The court charged Punalekar with destruction of evidence in the case. All five accused have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial in this case is on before a special court in Pune.
The CBI also arrested three others – Amol Kale, Amit Digwekar and Rajesh Bangera – who along with Kalaskar are accused in the 2017 murder of Gauri Lankesh. Kale, Digwekar and Bangera have not been charge-sheeted yet.
Common links claimed, ‘pistol recovered’
The agencies that have investigated the murders of Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Lankesh have claimed several common links in these cases, including the perpetrators and firearms used.
Nagori and Khandelwal have, however, never figured in the CBI’s investigation in the Dabholkar case nor has the agency made any mention of the firearm recovered from them.
In its probe into the weapons, the CBI arrested lawyer Punalekar alleging that he had advised the accused Kalaskar to destroy the firearms used in multiple murders, including that of Dabholkar and Gauri Lankesh.
According to the CBI, following Punalekar’s instructions, Kalaskar had allegedly dismantled the four country-made pistols and thrown the parts from a bridge in a creek near Thane on July 7, 2018.
The CBI then hired a foreign agency to carry out a search to retrieve these weapons from the creek. In March 2020, the agency claimed to have recovered a pistol. At the time of the recovery, the agency said the weapon would be examined by forensic and ballistic experts to ascertain whether it was linked to the murder. The outcomes of these examinations are not known.
Who is the mastermind?
The Bombay High Court (HC) has stopped monitoring the CBI’s probe in the Dabholkar murder case.
Dabholkar’s son Hamid said, “The CBI informed the court that they have completed the investigation. So the high court decided not to monitor the probe further. My sister Mukta and I moved the Supreme Court (in May this year) challenging the high court’s order to discontinue monitoring the probe. It is unfortunate that ten years have passed after the murder and still the masterminds behind Narendra Dabholkar’s murder have not been found.”
Before a trial court in Pune, the CBI recently alleged that Tawade was one of the key conspirators behind the murder. According to the agency, he got directions over email from Durgesh Samant, a spokesperson of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), to “leave all other work” and “concentrate on the anti-superstition bill 2005”. Dabholkar and his outfit ANIS had championed the bill against superstition for years. Tawade, meanwhile, was arrested by the Maharashtra Police for Pansare’s murder in September 2016.
Narendra Dabholkar murder accused Sachin Andure was brought by CBI sleuths to the murder spot at Omkareshwer bridge for investigation in August 2018. (Express photo by Arul Horizon) 
The Dabholkar murder case was initially investigated by the Pune city police. In June 2014, the CBI took over the probe. (Express photo by Ashish Kale)
Share
