Samir Gaikwad, an activist of right-wing outfit Sanatan Sanstha, who arrested in connection with the sensational murder of Communist leader Govind Pansare and charge sheeted, was on Saturday granted bail by the Kolhapur district sessions court.
Gaikwad was arrested by a team of Kolhapur Police and Special Investigation Team (SIT) on 16 September 2015. Gaikwad is associated with the Sanatan Sanstha since 1998 – and his family too is associated with the Right-wing organisation. His wife stays in the Goa ashram of Sanatan Sanstha.
The court while granting him bail has asked him to surrender his passport, not to leave Maharashtra and attend police investigations, whenever needed. Comrade Pansare, 82, and his wife, Uma were attacked by two motor-cycle borne youths on February 16, 2015, near his home in Kolhapur, and he died four days later on February 20, 2015, at the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.
In fact, the death of Pansare, rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar and writer Prof MM Kalburgi has come as a shock across the country. Dr Dabholkar, the founder-president of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), was shot dead on June 20, 2013, by two unidentified gunmen near Omkareshwar temple in Pune. Kalburgi, 76, noted scholar and writer, had run-ins with right-wing Hindutva groups over the years, was shot dead on August 30, 2015, by an unidentified gunman at the former's residence in the Kalyan Nagar locality of Dharwad.
Meanwhile, reacting to the bail the families of Dr Dabholkar and Pansare had asked the government to appeal immediately in the Bombay High Court. His bail was rejected twice earlier by the Kolhapur Sessions Court and once by the Bombay High Court.
“The police and government must appeal,” said Dr Dabholkar’s son Hamid Dabholkar. “The investigations are going on and hence he should not be released on bail and the government needs to act and appeal against the Kolhapur order,” said Medha Pansare, the daughter-in-law of Pansare.
Published 17 June 2017, 10:49 IST