A special court on Monday rejected a petition by the CBI to extend the custody of Dr. Virendra Tawde, the fringe right-wing Hindutva activist recently arrested by the agency in connection with the murder of rationalist-thinker Narendra Dabholkar in 2013.
Instead, while sentencing the ENT specialist to judicial custody the court granted the SIT of the Maharashtra police, which is probing the murder of Communist leader Govind Pansare, the case so that it can grill Dr. Tawde and ascertain his role in that incident.