Dabholkar murder case: CBI carries out searches in Pune and Panvel

CBI sources said the searches are going at the house of Sarang Akolkar, believed to be a Sanatan Sanstha activist whose name had reportedly figured in the Goa blasts case of 2009, in Pune and one Virendra Singh Tawde in Panvel near Mumbai

The CBI on Wednesday carried out searches in Pune and Panvel in connection with the murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013.

Rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, who was trying to get an anti-superstition and black magic bill passed, was shot dead in Pune in August 2013. (HT File Photo)

CBI sources said the searches are going at the house of Sarang Akolkar, believed to be a Sanatan Sanstha activist whose name had reportedly figured in the Goa blasts case of 2009, in Pune and one Virendra Singh Tawde in Panvel near Mumbai.

Dabholkar was shot dead by unknown assailants in Pune on August 20, 2013.

After the agency sought permission to carry out a lie detector test on two Sanstha member, the Sanstha had claimed that the CBI was “falsely implicating” its seekers – Hemant Shinde, Nilesh Shinde, Niraj Yengul, Mahendra Sahasrabudhhe, Yashavant Sahasrabudhhe and Krushna Kumbhar.

The Bombay high court had transferred the probe to the CBI on May 9, 2014, on a PIL filed by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar on the plea that there was no headway several months after the killing of the eminent rationalist.