The unsolved murders of Kendriya Sahitya Akademi awardee and anti-superstition activist Professor M.M. Kalburgi and activists Dr. Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare came under Supreme Court scanner on Wednesday with a plea that the same organisation and shooters were behind all three crimes.
The apex court agreed to examine a plea by Kalburgi's widow, Umadevi, for a co-ordinated probe into her husband's murder by a special investigation team supervised by a retired judge of the high court or the Supreme Court. She said her husband's murder should be investigated by taking into consideration the common links it shares with the killings of Dabholkar and Pansare. Dr. Narendra Dabholkar was murdered on August 20, 2013 in Pune. Pansare was killed on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, just few months before the murder of Kalburgi on August 30, 2015. Umadevi alleged the murder weapon used to kill Pansare and Kalburgi are the same.
“All three were abused, threatened by certain sections of the society,” Umadevi, advocates Krishan Kumar and Abhya Nevagi, submitted. Mr. Kalburgi was shot dead at his Bengaluru residence in broad daylight. The murder, Umadevi said, "left every right-minded person in society shell-shocked" and should not go unpunished. A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra issued notice to the Union, NIA, CBI, State government of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa, and asked them to respond in six weeks. Umadevi argued that the Karnataka Police investigation has meandered over the past three years despite assurances from the State that the “biggest manhunt” by the State C.I.D. is underway. She alleged the same shooters may be involved in the Goa bomb blasts of 2009 and may have already fled the country. In her writ petition, she asked the Supreme Court to use its extraordinary constitutional powers to order an investigation by a special team of the Karnataka Police under the supervision of a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge. She said the investigation was in a sorry state. Umadevi urged the apex court that since the three murders are inter-connected, a direction should be passed to the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and the CBI and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to conduct a co-ordinated probe into the Kalburgi murder. She fears the probe into her husband’s murder would “casually drift towards its conclusion with the possibility of the offenders going unpunished”. “Every offence is a crime against the society and is unpardonable, yet there are some species of ghastly, revolting and villainous violations of the invaluable right to life which leaves all sensible and right –minded persons of the society shell-shocked and traumatised in the body and soul,” Umadevi said. The petition alleged that the NIA has been seeking the arrest of the shooters in both the murders of Dr. Dabholkar and Mr. Pansare and the Goa bomb blasts case. The bomb blasts were investigated by the NIA. However only some of the accused were tried, and the trial had led to their acquittal. Meanwhile, the Goa government, she alleged, is “sitting quietly on the spacious plea that the probe is with the NIA”.
