SIT arrests 11th accused in Gauri Lankesh murder case

Bengaluru Police has made the eleventh arrest in the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh last September, when it picked up Suresh HL, a resident of Tumakuru, on Wednesday.

Suresh (36) was arrested by the special investigation team (SIT) and produced before the 3rd additional chief metropolitan magistrate on Thursday and remanded to judicial custody.

Suresh’s arrest comes on the back of a flurry of arrests made by the SIT in the case — his is the fifth arrest in less than two weeks.

A senior official of the SIT, however, refused to elaborate on Suresh’s role in the September 5 murder of the journalist.

On Monday, police had arrested 50-year-old Rajesh Bangera from Kodagu, which was preceded by the arrests of Amit Baddi and Ganesh Miskin, who are believed to have driven Parashuram Waghmare, the suspected shooter, to Lankesh’s house on the night the crime was committed on a two-wheeler.

The first breakthrough in the case came with the arrest of KT Naveen Kumar, a resident of Maddur, in February.

Naveen allegedly confirmed a well-planned conspiracy involving Sujith Kumar alias Praveen, Amol Kale, Amit Degwekar and Manohar Yedave. Another person, Mohan Nayak, an Ayurveda practitioner, was arrested earlier this month.

Kale and Degwekar are believed to be the masterminds of the murder conspiracy. Bangera, reported to have links with right-wing organisations, is suspected to have recruited those two and one Dada alias Nihal, who the SIT is yet to track down.

While forensic analysis of the bullets found from the murder scene of Lankesh were found to be a match with those recovered from the house of Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi, who was shot dead at his house by two unidentified men, the weapon has not been recovered yet. The SIT is also trying to locate the two-wheeler used in the crime, a senior official said.