PUNE: The
CBI on Wednesday night arrested Amol Kale (37) on charges of hatching criminal conspiracy to murder rationalist
Narendra Dabholkar and providing pistol, ammunition and motorcycle to the two shooters arrested in the case.
CBI secured Kale's custody, one of the conspirators in the murder of journalist
Gauri Lankesh, from the Bengaluru central prison. The sixth suspect arrested in the
Dabholkar murder case was flown to Mumbai on Thursday and later produced before a magisterial court here amid tight security. He will remain in CBI custody till September 14.
A CBI official claimed that ENT doctor Virendrasinh Tawde, arrested earlier, and Kale among others had hatched the criminal conspiracy to murder Dabholkar. He said Kale had successfully executed the conspiracy of eliminating Dabholkar. He was later assigned the job of conspiring the murder of Lankesh, he added.
Kale's involvement in Dabholkar's murder came to light after Sachin Andure, one of the two persons the CBI recently claimed to have fired at Dabholkar, told the investigating agency that he and the other shooter, Sharad Kalaskar, had received the firearms and motorbike from Kale.
After reaching Pune, the CBI officials produced Kale before judicial magistrate first class S MA Sayyed. Special public prosecutor Vijaykumar Dhakane told the court that custodial interrogation of Kale was essential to unearth the larger criminal conspiracy but did not elaborate on his exact role in the Dabholkar murder case because the Bombay High Court instructed the CBI to not reveal details on the investigations' outcome.
