SIT a few steps away from cracking Gauri case

A year after senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at her residence in Rajarajeshwarinagar, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the case is just a few steps away from cracking the case.

The SIT has so far arrested 12 accused in the case and also established various links to the previous killings of rationalists M M Kalburgi on August 30, 2015, in Dharwad and Narendra Dabholkar on August 20, 2013, in Pune.

The investigation revealed that after Gauri’s death, Amol Kale — the master mind in the case — had written in his diary about a plan to kill four other progressive thinkers on a single day.

He listed the names of playwright and Jnanpith awardee Girish Karnad, writer K S Bhagwan, Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swami of Nidumamidi Mutt and rationalist Narendra Nayak to be killed in a day, but the date was not fixed. He had also decided who would kill who.

He had given instructions to his men to keep a close watch on these four people.

The police made the first arrest after 165 days, and in the next 150 days, the SIT arrested 11 other accused after screening thousands of phone calls and verifying hundreds of DVRs in and around Gauri’s house, office and her route, and other technical evidence.

The SIT sent the original CCTV camera footage and footage of reconstruction of crime scene to Gait Analysis by the Directorate of Forensic Science, Gujarat. The reports confirmed that Parashuram Waghmore, who was arrested, was the one who pulled the trigger. While the SIT has arrested the key players in the case, there are some more to be arrested in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Kavitha Lankesh, filmmaker and Gauri’s sister, appreciated the efforts of SIT. She said that not just those who planned the murder and pulled the trigger, but the people who inspired them to take up such acts should also be brought to justice.