Mumbai: The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Saturday obtained the police custody of Amol Kale, Ganesh Miskin and Amit Baddi till October 12 in the Nalasopara arms haul case. The trio was arrested by the Bengaluru Special Investigation Team (SIT) in connection with the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar and scholar MM Kalburgi.
Amol Kale, a former convener of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti in Pune, has been in the custody of Karnataka Police in the Lankesh murder case since May 22 and also in connection with the murder of Dr Dabholkar, while the other two, Miskin and Baddi, have been in custody since July 23. The ATS requested 14 days’ police custody for the trio, for their close connection to the Lankesh, Dabholkar and Kalburgi murder cases. Kale is closely related to Shrikant Pangarkar, one of the accused in the Nalasopara arms haul case.
The defence counsel Sanjeev Punalekar argued, “They have been in custody for a long time but nothing has been unearthed, even though the ATS has claimed they were targeting the Sunburn Festival in Pune. However the First Information Report (FIR) does not consist such accusations.” Considering both the arguments, the special National Investigating Agency (NIA) Judge Vinod Padalkar granted ATS six days’ police custody till October 12, having seen the case diary.