DAMAGE PLAN
PAWN MAPPING
The Gauri Lankesh murder probe points to more sinister plots
by Ajay Sukumaran
IN late May , eight months after journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead in Bangalore , a special investigation team ( SIT ) probing the case was inching towards a breakthrough — the arrest of a group of rightwing activists who , police say , are key suspects in the murder conspiracy .
In the process , investigators claimed to have unearthed a second plot targeting K . S . Bhagwan , the Mysore-based academic and rationalist , whose writings have often attracted the ire of right-wing groups . Sources say that searches at various places frequented by these suspects have revealed a list of public figures — eight of them from Karnataka — who were possibly targets .
The police haven ’ t named any organisation in their preliminary chargesheet in the Lankesh case yet . But due to fingers pointing in their direction , outfits such as the Hindu Janajagruthi Samiti ( HJS ) and the Goa-based Sanathan Sanstha are crying foul , saying they are ‘ soft targets ’. The HJS has dissociated itself from Amol Kale ,
K . T . Naveen Kumar ( above ), is alleged to have helped the killers procure bullets for the murder .
JITENDER GUPTA
one of the four arrested persons — the other three are Amit Degvekar , Sujith Kumar and Manohar Edave — saying Kale had left the organisation in 2008 and hasn ’ t been in touch ever since . Last September , a few weeks after Lankesh ’ s murder , the Sanathan Sanstha had held a press conference in Bangalore saying it had nothing to do with the crime . “ It ’ s possible that the suspects may have been connected with Hindu organisations long ago , but they were not officebearers or active participants for many years ,” says Virendra Ichalkaranjikar , the advocate representing the four arrested men . Vire ndra , who heads the Hindu Vidhidnya Parishad , an ass ociation of lawyers which takes up cases of Hindu activists argues that in the last decade , the same kind of questions are being asked and a “ hype has been created around these cases .”
FEARLESS FACE A candlelight march in memory of Gauri Lankesh
The SIT made headway in the Gauri Lankesh case in February with the arrest of K . T . Naveen Kumar , 37 , who is alleged to have helped the killers identify her house and carry out surveillance besides procuring bullets . Last week , in a preliminary chargesheet filed against him in a Bangalore court , the SIT cited his statement that Lankesh was killed for her ‘ anti-Hindu ’ views . Investigators say Sujith called Naveen from public booths and that surveillance led them to the rest of the accused . The probe team has been tight-lipped about the details of the investigation which is still ongoing .
Lankesh , who edited the Kannada tabloid Gauri Lankesh Patrike , was shot dead outside her home in Bangalore ’ s Rajarajeshwari Nagar , on September 5 , 2017 . The murder came two years after similar attacks on Kannada scholar M . M . Kal burgi in Dharwad and left-wing thinker and writer Govind Pansare in Kolhapur . Both were rationalists .
According to sources , the probe reveals that a recce of Lankesh ’ s home had been carried out eight months prior to the crime and a map of the locality was among the articles seized during the searches . “ Considering this kind of development has not happened in the Pansare and Kalburgi cases , I think it ’ s very positive ,” says filmmaker Kavitha Lankesh , Gauri ’ s younger sister . “ We ’ ve always suspected extreme right-wing people whom Gauri was against . They think she was against Hindus and I just don ’ t understand that .”
Although there has been no headway in the Kalburgi murder probe so far , investigators have found a link bet ween the weapon used for Kalburgi ’ s murder and those used for the murders of Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Maharashtra in 2013 and 2015 respectively . The story so far is that two guns were used in the Pansare murder in Kolhapur . A ballistic analysis done by Karnataka ’ s Criminal Investigation Department in 2015 had found that markings on one set of bullets matched with the Dabholkar case while the other matched with the Kalburgi murder , indicating that the same two weapons were used in all three murders .
In 2015 , following the attack on Kalburgi , the Karnataka government had stepped up security for Bhagwan . The retired Mysore University professor had , sometime ago , courted controversy over his comment that parts of the Bhagavad Gita were sexist and casteist . The five suspects being probed by the SIT have also been booked for plotting to kill Bhagwan . O
14 OUTLOOK 18 June 2018