Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka Police, which was probing the murder of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh has submitted a 9,235-page chargesheet naming 18 persons. The charge sheet stated that it was an “organized crime” carried out by persons linked to the radical right-wing outfit, Sanatan Sanstha. 16 of the primary culprits have been arrested while 2 are absconding.
One of the prime accused in plotting the murder was Amol Kale, 37, a former Pune convenor of the Sanstha-affiliated Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. The plan was executed by Parashuram Waghmare, 26, a member of Sri Rama Sena. The chargesheet states that Waghmare was recruited, trained and funded by Kale with the assistance of a secretive group linked to the Sanstha.
Special public prosecutor S Balan said, “It is an act of organized crime. The Sanatan Sanstha has been named in the chargesheet as the group that carried out the killing with the help of members of other fringe groups. The murder was planned by a group involved in such killings for five years.’’
Balan said, “The killer and the killed have no personal or any other entity. Why she was killed? Because she believed in a certain ideology, she wrote and spoke on that. So, it must be an ideology and it must be an organization.”
SIT’s chief investigating officer M N Anucheth said,“We have sought permission to investigate further.’’
In its first chargesheet, SIT attached a ballistics report from the Karnataka Forensic Science Laboratory stating that Lankesh was killed with the same 7.65 mm country-made gun that was used to kill the Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi and the Leftist thinker Govind Pansare and his wife in Kolhapur on February 16, 2015. The ballistics report says that another 7.65 mm gun was used to kill the rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune on August 20, 2013