Shooter destroyed firearms on lawyer’s instruction: CBI

PUNE: The CBI told a sessions court here on Sunday that Mumbai lawyer Sanjiv Punalekar had instructed Sharad Kalaskar, one of the two alleged shooters in the murder of Narendra Dabholkar, to destroy the firearms used in the murders of the rationalist in Pune and journalist-turned-activist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru.

The instruction came during a meeting Kalaskar had with Punalekar in the latter’s chamber at Fort, Mumbai, in June last year and the alleged shooter acted on it on July 23, 2018, by dismantling four country-made pistols and throwing them into the water from a bridge in Thane creek while on way to Nalasopara from Pune, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said.
The probe agency insisted that the custodial interrogation of Punalekar and his aide, Vikram Bhave, was critical to ascertain their roles in aiding the shooters and unearth the entire conspiracy and their involvement with other co-accused. Both Punalekar and Bhave were arrested on Saturday.
Bhave is accused of helping Kalaskar and Andure in doing a recce of the route taken by Dabholkar for his morning walk, the escape route they were to take after the shooting and the spot where they were to abandon their motorcycle used in the crime.
Additional sessions judge S N Sonawane ordered Punalekar and Bhave’s remand in CBI custody till June 1.
Earlier, CBI’s investigating officer, S R Singh, and his team produced Punalekar and Bhave before judge Sonawane. Special public prosecutor Prakash Suryavanshi moved separate reports seeking their custodial remand for 14 days. “We want to know his (Punalekar’s) exact role in the destruction of the firearms, unearth the conspiracy and establish the exact details of the recce work aided by Bhave,” Suryavanshi told the court.
Punalekar, who represented Kalaskar in the July 2018 Nalasopara arms haul case, argued in person and said the CBI had no case for his custodial remand. The probe agency was claiming fresh revelation behind his arrest, but the action was based on a statement Kalaskar had recorded on October 12, 2018, before a magistrate in Karnataka, he said.
The CBI appended this statement in the supplementary chargesheet filed in February against Kalaskar and Andure, he added.
“Over seven months have passed since Kalaskar’s statement and over three months since the supplementary chargesheet and the CBI is now saying it has fresh revelation,” Punalekar submitted. This was not the case even when Kalaskar was in CBI custody following his arrest in connection with Dabholkar’s murder, he said. “The charge against me (of instructing destruction of firearms) is a bailable offence and it is not the CBI’s case that I am directly linked with the crime,” Punalekar submitted and said his meeting with Kalaskar was in his capacity as a lawyer.
Lawyer Virendra Ichalkaranjikar, representing Bhave, argued that the CBI was “unfair in its investigation” as it had questioned Bhave on September 11 and 12 last year and found nothing then as well as after the supplementary chargesheet in February. The remand report makes no reference to any evidence such as CCTV footage and witness account to prima facie establish that Bhave accompanied Kalaskar and Andure for the recce. The CBI was only arresting suspects, opposing their bail pleas and seeking stay on trial and this is not a fair probe, he added.