The Special Investigation Team, probing the Gauri Lankesh murder case, produced the four accused before the magistrate court on Monday and took them into custody for four more days. Sujeet Kumar Alias Praveen, 37, and his associates, Amol Kale alias Bhaisab, 39, from Maharashtra; Amit Degwekar alias Pradeep, 39, from Goa, and Manohar Edave, 28, from Vijayapura, were also allegedly part of a conspiracy to kill writer K.S. Bhagavan.
While seeking their custody extension, the SIT officials submitted a detailed report to the court explaining the progress of the investigation. N.P. Amrutesh, advocate representing the accused, objected to the custody extension demanding the details submitted by the SIT be made public.
Meanwhile, Manohar Edave one of the accused, submitted that SIT officials were harassing them.
He alleged that they were made to wake up at 4 a.m. for questioning, but officials wrote the answers themselves and forced them to sign on the statement letter.
SIT teams from neighbouring States have joined the probe to ascertain the role of the accused in two other murder cases.
The SIT, during the course of investigation, found that the same weapon was used to kill both Gauri and M.M. Kalburgi and suspected that the accused were involved in other murder cases too.