The SIT probe in Karnataka has revealed that Kale headed a covert operations unit of a radical Hindutva group involved in shootings and subversive activities in India over the last decade.
THE CBI, which is investigating the August 20, 2013, murder of the rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune, approached a Bengaluru sessions court on Tuesday with a requisition for custody of three persons arrested by a Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police for involvement in the September 5, 2017 murder of the journalist Gauri Lankesh. The CBI approached the court of the principal sessions judge, equipped with a body warrant issued by a Maharashtra court for the custody of Amol Kale, 37, Amit Degwekar, 38, and Rajesh Bangera, 50, in connection with the Dabholkar murder. The sessions court has asked the CBI to present the application afresh in a prescribed format.
The CBI on Sunday had informed a special court in Maharashtra that it would be seeking the custody of a few persons arrested in Karnataka in the Gauri Lankesh murder case since their involvement has emerged in the Dabholkar murder as well. The CBI indicated that Kale, a key accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder, was the one who handed Sachin Andhure – the alleged shooter in the Dabholkar case — a gun and ammunition for the murder.
Kale, a former Pune convenor of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti — a sister concern of the radical Hindu outfit Sanatan Sanstha — was arrested by the Karnataka SIT in May after he was found to be involved in the plot to kill Lankesh.
The SIT probe in Karnataka has revealed that Kale headed a covert operations unit of a radical Hindutva group involved in shootings and subversive activities in India over the last decade. Kale has been identified by the SIT as the lynchpin in the execution of the Lankesh shooting. The second Lankesh case suspect whose custody is being sought by the CBI in the Dabholkar case is Amit Degwekar, 38, a resident of the Sanatan Sanstha ashram in Ponda in Goa. He is accused by the Karnataka SIT of providing financial and logistical support to the covert group headed by Kale to recruit youths from fringe Hindutva groups to carry out shootings and subversive activities.
Degwekar, who worked as a promoter of the Sanatan Sanstha’s publication the Sanatan Prabhat, was arrested in May by the SIT along with Kale.
The CBI has also sought custody of Rajesh Bangera, 50, the alleged arms trainer of the covert Hindutva group who has been identified as the man who trained the alleged Dabholkar shooter Sachin Andure and his accomplice Sharad Kalaskar in the usage of guns ahead of the murder.