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Accused made ‘extra-judicial confession’ in Dabholkar murder case, says lawyer
Two bike-borne assailants shot dead Dabholkar in August 2013 and the investigation into the murder was handed over to the CBI a year later.
Sachin Andure, one of the two alleged shooters of Narendra Dabholkar, allegedly made an extra-judicial confession about having killed him to a restaurant owner in Aurangabad days after the rationalist was found dead in Pune in 2013, special public prosecutor Prakash Suryavanshi submitted in the case on Friday. The defence questioned the veracity and admissibility of the evidence.
A new set of draft charges submitted by Suryavanshi include Sections 120(b) (criminal conspiracy) read with 302 (murder), 302 with 34 (common intention), and 302 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with Section 16 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Sections of Arms Act against the four accused in the murder. IPC Section 201 (destruction of evidence) has been invoked against a fifth accused.
The defence urged SR Navander, the special judge appointed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to hear the case, to consider a trial involving all charge sheets submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), including the one which has contradicting claims about the pair of shooters who killed Dabholkar.
Two bike-borne assailants shot dead Dabholkar in August 2013 and the investigation into the murder was handed over to the CBI a year later. In the first charge sheet filed in the case in September 2016, the CBI named Virendra Tawade as the main conspirator and Sarang Akolkar and Vinay Pawar as the shooters. A supplementary charge sheet was filed in February 2019, naming Andure and Sharad Kalaskar as the two shooters. Another charge sheet was filed in November 2019, against advocate Sanjiv Punalekar and his aide Vikram Bhave, naming them as co-conspirators.
The CBI included the extrajudicial confession in the supplementary charge sheet. Along with this, the prosecution said there are four eyewitnesses to the confession.
Advocate Virendra Ichalkaranjikar, who represents the accused, said two of the eyewitnesses identified the two men who were earlier named as shooters--Akolkar and Pawar. “The prosecution will not tell you this. When the first charge sheet was filed, one pair of men was incriminated, and my client was called the mastermind (Tawade). Three years later, another charge sheet is filed in which two different men are shooters, but my client is still the alleged mastermind.”
Suryavanshi also cited the statement of businessman Sanjay Sadvilkar, who allegedly provided weapons to Tawade. Sadvilkar’s statement was recorded in the first charge sheet the CBI filed in 2016.
Ichalkaranjikar said in the first charges sheet, Sadvilkar was quoted as saying the two men, who had come with Tawade were Akolkar and Pawar. “The CBI changed its course of direction later on. What they filed was a supplementary charge sheet. Once the first charge sheet is filed, the direction of the investigation is final.”
Suryavanshi also referred to a forensic expert Nilesh Wagh’s psychological assessment of Andure, Kalaskar, and Punalekar, and added he said the statements made by the two shooters during the recreation of the crime scene were truthful.
Ichalkaranjikar questioned the admissibility of the expert opinion.
“Even after a polygraph/narco test, what is the evidential value of Wagh’s inputs? None. Just like there is no evidential value to a statement of a co-accused against an accused,” said Ichalkaranjikar.
On August 20, eight years after Dabholkar was killed, the CBI submitted “draft charges” in the special UAPA court that will hear the case.
