There are conflicting reports on the exact role K.T. Naveen Kumar played in the murder of Gauri Lankesh. Some officers with the Special Investigative Team (SIT) probing the case said he was the one who did the reconnaissance of Gauri’s house at Rajarajeshwarinagar on September 3, 2017 and later on September 5, hours before she was murdered.
CCTV camera footage from near her house showed a man clad in a white shirt on a Pulsar bike doing a recce of the house on those dates. SIT sleuths recently took Naveen to the house and reconstructed the scene by making him sit on a similar bike with a helmet. “The visuals of the reconstruction have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to be compared with the CCTV camera footage from September 3 and 5, 2017. We are waiting for the report,” said a police officer.
However, the SIT seems to be divided on when the reconnaissance was done. A senior SIT official said it was unlikely that Naveen is the man on the CCTV camera footage.
“He may have done a recce of the house, but it was not on September 3 and 5,” said the senior official.
The route Naveen took to Gauri’s house during the reconstruction exercise gives credence to the SIT’s reconnaissance theory.
CCTV camera footage
“We are analysing footage from various CCTV cameras on Mysuru Road, assuming that the killers followed Gauri who took Mysuru Road and turned left at the R.R. Nagar arch to reach her house. But Naveen did not go to Mysuru Road at all. He guided us to the Outer Ring Road and took a road next to PES College to reach Gauri’s house, a route that had no CCTV cameras and the one we had neglected,” the police officer said.
Sources also said he had helped a group from Maharashtra that came to Mysuru to do a recee of the house of rationalist K.S. Bhagavan.
A separate case has been registered in relation to the matter. “Naveen seems to be the man in-charge of providing local logistics to the team that executed the murder of Gauri and to a team that was about to similarly target professor Bhagavan,” a source said.
Search intensified for another accused Praveen
The Special Investigation Team has intensified its search for a man called Praveen, who has been named as an accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case along with Naveen.
“He is Naveen’s associate who hails from Maharashtra, and we suspect he played active roles not just in the murder of Gauri but also in planning an attack on writer K.S. Bhagavan,” said an SIT official.
Investigations so far have revealed that Naveen had provided logistic help to the people involved Gauri’s murder and travelled to Maharashtra and Goa to conduct meetings. With Naveen in five-day custody, the SIT officials are taking him to Goa, Belguam and other parts of Karnataka for spot inspections.
Sources in the SIT said Praveen worked closely with Naveen. “Praveen had frequented Bengaluru and other parts of the State. However, after Naveen’s arrest, he has gone underground. We are not even sure whether Praveen is his real name or not, but we have some definite clues, and efforts are on to track him down,” a senior police officer said.
The police believe that Praveen’s arrest will help them unravel the conspiracy and lead them to other people involved.
