Bengaluru: Even as a special court in Bengaluru on Saturday framed charges against 18 accused in the Gauri Lankesh’s murder case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, Arms Act and Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes Act (KCOCA), however, one missing link in the case could prove to be a chink in the armour as the police have not been able to recover the pistol used to commit the crime.
The trial of the case will finally begin after more than four years since the journalist turned activist was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home on September 5, 2017.
The trial is also crucial as Lankesh’s murder is also connected to the killing of other rationalists – MM Kalburgi, Govind Pansare, and Narendra Dabolkar. With all suspects in custody and the Supreme Court upholding the Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) decision to slap Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes against them, the police are confident of a victory in the case.
Just days after the murder, balletic experts had concluded that a 7.65mm country-made pistol was used to murder Lankesh. The investigation revealed that 10 days after the murder, one of the accused, Sudhanva Gondhalekar traveled to Bengaluru and collected the murder weapon from a rented house in Seegehalli, where the accused was staying after the attack.
Gondhalekar handed over this weapon to Sharad Kalaskar, an associate of his. After key members of the gang that killed Lankesh were arrested in May 2018, Kalaskar was given instructions to dispose of the weapon.
{{/usCountry}}Gondhalekar handed over this weapon to Sharad Kalaskar, an associate of his. After key members of the gang that killed Lankesh were arrested in May 2018, Kalaskar was given instructions to dispose of the weapon.
{{/usCountry}}In 2019, SIT got custody of Kalaskar, and he revealed where he had thrown the weapon. “We also decided to remove the slide and barrels of these three pistols and dispose them. The remaining parts could be used in making other weapons. Likewise, I selected the three pistols, removed the slide and barrels, and put them in a bag. Vaibhav Raut and I took off in Raut’s car and threw these parts into a river from a bridge on the Mumbai — Nashik highway on July 23, 2018, at about 9:00 pm. The remaining parts of these weapons, I gave to Vaibhav Raut who kept him at his house in Nallasopara,” read Kalaskar’s confession statement.
The SIT roped in a dredging agency to find the weapon from the creek, but after months of dredging, the SIT has decided to give up on the search.
The SIT is confident that they can secure a conviction even without the murder weapon. “We have made all attempts to recover the weapon, and this has been conveyed in the charge sheet. At the same time, one of the accused in his statement has said that he disposed of the weapon to destroy evidence. The other strong evidence we have provided in the case would conclusively prove the murder and the conspiracy,” said a senior SIT official.
While the case evidence provided by the SIT could prove the murder, but in order to prove the larger conspiracy to murder rationalists, which is one of the reasons for slapping charges under organized crime, the weapon would be crucial. Especially since the Lankesh trial is expected to help the investigation into the other three murders, which are at crossroads now.
The SIT investigation also unearthed a link between the murders of four rationalists – MM Kalburgi, Govind Pansare, Narendra Dhabolkar, and Lankesh. During the initial days of the investigation, the SIT found a connection between the murders of Lankesh and professor Kalburgi, who was killed on August 30, 2015. The four bullet slugs and cartridges recovered from Lankesh’s house matched with the slugs and cartridges of the Kalburgi murder case. The forensic labs found that both bullets were fired from the same gun.
The Maharashtra SIT, which is probing the murder of another rationalist, Govind Pansare, also found that the same was used in Lankesh and Pansare murders. The link between the murders of Lankesh and Narendra Dhabolkar, another Maharashtra-based rationalist, murdered on August 20, 2013, emerged during the later stages of the investigation.
It was found that 50-year-old Rajesh Bangera, a second division assistant in the Education Department, who was the 10th person arrested by Karnataka SIT, provided weapons training to the killers of Dhabolkar and Lankesh.