Journalist held: ‘CCTV camera foiled contract killers’ plan’

The sources said that the hired killers in the meantime decided to return to their base on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border and were arrested in the city of Miraj in Sangli district of Maharashtra on September 14 when they were allegedly preparing for a dacoity. Two countrymade 7.65 mm guns and several rounds of ammunition were found in their possession.

After getting bail in the Miraj case, Mundewadi, Badiger and an arms supplier Tahir Hussain alias Anoop Gowda reportedly visited Bengaluru again to execute the “supari’’ allegedly given by Belagare. However, they landed up on the radar of a Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police which was probing the September 5, 2017, killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh outside her home by unidentified gunmen.

The SIT zeroed in on the hired killers in the course of tracking guns and ammunition supplied recently by illegal arms traders from Vijayapura district in north Karnataka. Tracking their activities, the SIT found that they were plotting to kill Heggaravalli. They alerted the Bengaluru crime branch to step in and prevent the killing, police sources said.

Heggaravalli has expressed shock after the plot was exposed. “I cannot figure out why I was the target. We were close to each other,” he has stated. He has also said that the CCTV footage at his home showed that Mundewadi had come to his house on August 28 in the guise of a courier boy.