MM Kalburgi murder: SIT takes into custody man who drove shooter to professor's home

Crime

Praveen Prakash Chatur alias Krishnamurthy is allegedly a member of a radical right-wing group.

Theja Ram

Almost four years after Professor MM Kalburgi was shot dead at his home in Karnataka’s Dharwad district, the Special Investigation Team probing the case has made a major breakthrough. The SIT took Praveen Prakash Chatur alias Krishnamurthy into custody, who is suspected to have driven alleged shooter Ganesh Miskin to Professor Kalburgi’s home in Dharwad. The story was first reported by The Quint. According to the investigators, Praveen is allegedly a member of a radical right-wing group which was formed in 2011 to target ‘durjans’, or those the gang members named as ‘anti-Hindu’. The SIT probing the murder of Gauri Lankesh took over the probe of Professor Kalburgi’s murder in 2018. The case was initially being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which had not made any forays in identifying the suspects. SIT investigators learned of Praveen’s involvement in Professor Kalburgi’s murder after they interrogated Amol Kale, the alleged mastermind and prime accused in Gauri Lankesh’s murder. The SIT will now set up a lineup of the accused for eye-witness identification. Professor Kalburgi was shot dead on August 30, 2015, by two bike-borne assailants who posed as college students and entered his house. Journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017. Investigators had initially narrowed down the suspects in Kalburgi’s murder as Ganesh Miskin and Amit Baddi. Amit Baddi has been accused of training Gauri Lankesh’s alleged shooter – Parashuram Waghmore — in the use of firearms. However, eyewitness accounts ruled out Baddi as the man who drove Ganesh Miskin to the professor’s home. SIT sources say that Ganesh Miskin claimed to have conducted a recce of Kalburgi’s home before he was murdered. Meanwhile, in a parallel probe being conducted by the CBI into the murder of anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, investigators have learned that another accused in Gauri’s murder – Sharad Kalaskar — allegedly destroyed the firearms used in the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, CPI activist Govind Pansare, Professor MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. Narendra Dabholkar was killed on August 20, 2013, at Omkareshwar Bridge in Pune while he was out for a morning walk. CPI activist Govind Pansare was shot dead on February 20, 2015, in Kolhapur. The SIT probe had connected the dots and found that the four murders were allegedly perpetrated by the same gang. The CBI probe revealed that Sanathan Sanstha counsel Sanjiv Punalekar allegedly told Sharad Kalaskar to destroy the firearms, including the weapons used in the Gauri Lankesh case. Sources say that Sharad Kalaskar allegedly dismantled and disposed three weapons in the Thane creek on July 23, 2018. The probe also states that Sanjiv Punalekar's associate, Bhave, helped the shooters in Narendra Dabholkar’s murder – Sharad Kalaskar and Sachin Andhure —  in conducting a reconnaissance of Dabholkar’s home before the murder.

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