Sudhanva Gondhalekar, 39, a businessman who was associated with the Shri Shiv Pratishtan Hindustan and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, who was arrested in Pune by the Maharashtra ATS on August 10.
One of three men linked to radical Hindutva groups who was arrested last week by the Maharashtra ATS — for allegedly stockpiling arms and explosives for terrorist activities — is a person of interest to a Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police which is investigating the September 5, 2017, murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.
Sudhanva Gondhalekar, 39, a businessman who was associated with the Shri Shiv Pratishtan Hindustan and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, who was arrested in Pune by the Maharashtra ATS on August 10, is a person of interest to the SIT on account of his links with two key arrested suspects in the Lankesh case and on account of seizure of a large cache of guns from his possession.
The SIT is viewing Gondhalekar as a person of interest because he was closely associated with Amol Kale, 37, a former HJS convenor in Pune, who has been identified as the head of operations of a covert Hindutva group that is believed to have executed the Lankesh murder.
The close link between Kale and Gondhalekar emerged from phone call records of Kale — which the SIT accessed after the former HJS man was arrested in the Lankesh case on May 31 — and from references made to Gondhalekar in a diary Kale maintained — often in code — about the operations he was carrying out in Karnataka for the cause of radical Hindutva.
A second reason the SIT is interested in Gondhalekar, sources said, is the fact that the Maharashtra ATS seized as many as 11 country-made pistols – stored clandestinely by the businessman at a location in Pune – following his arrest last week. Gondhalekar revealed the location of the arms cache during his interrogation, the Maharashtra ATS said in a press release on August 11.
The Karnataka SIT is hoping to find the 7.65 mm country-made pistol that was used to kill Lankesh among the arms stockpiled by Gondhalekar at his Pune godown
The SIT investigations into the Lankesh murder case has also found that a key suspect in the case, Sujeet Kumar alias Praveen, 38, was sheltered in Satara – where Gondhalekar hails from – by a friend of Gondhalekar, at the possible instance of Kale, when the SIT was looking for Sujeet Kumar after arresting the first suspect in the murder case, K T Naveen Kumar, in March this year.
Sujeet Kumar, a former activist of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, was sheltered in Satara for over a month at the possible instance of Gondhalekar and Kale when the SIT turned the heat on Sujeet Kumar following the arrest of Naveen Kumar, SIT sources said.
Gondhalekar is the co-founder of a computer aided design firm called CAD Point Pvt Ltd, which was set up in Satara on March 1, 2016 in partnership with Prathiba Umesh Mote.
According to financial declarations made by the company as per norms of the Ministry of Company Affairs, the firm earned a revenue of Rs 45 lakh in its first year of operations.
A second suspect arrested by the Maharashtra ATS – Sharad Kalaskar, 25, also finds a mention in the diary of Kale but his role has not emerged in the Lankesh case, SIT sources said.
No links have emerged between a third suspect arrested by the Maharashtra ATS – Hindu Govansha Rakshan Samiti co-ordinator and HJS associate Vaibhav Raut, 40, and the Lankesh case so far, SIT sources said.