Pansare murder: NIA zeroes in on another Sanatan man

Rudra Patil is a suspect in the 2009 Margao blast case

With a team from the National Investigation Agency joining the probe to nab the killers of veteran Communist leader Govind Pansare, it is now emerging that the arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Sameer Gaikwad was in contact with Rudra Patil, another outfit member accused in the 2009 Margao blast case in Goa.

According to sources, Patil’s name emerged from Gaikwad’s tapped mobile phone call records. Patil, along with yet another Sanatan Sanstha member Dilip Akolkar of Pune, was among the 12 charged by the NIA in the Margao blast case. The duo has been eluding the NIA dragnet since then.

Senior officers tracing the threads of the case in Sangli and Kolhapur now suggest that Rudra Patil, along with Gaikwad and a couple of others, may have done a recce of Pansare’s home in Kolhapur.

Sources say it is clear that Gaikwad was in touch with Patil and that the latter was probably well-aware, or had himself played a major role, in the plot to murder the octogenarian leader.

Fresh grilling of Gaikwad and his friend, Jyoti Kamble, continued amid tight security in Kolhapur with teams of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the NIA, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and the Kolhapur police holding several sessions and pooling clues together in a bid to crack the seven-month-long case.

TV anchor refuses security

Meanwhile, senior journalist and TV anchor Nikhil Wagle, who has been receiving threats from the Sanatan Sanstha in the past, was mentioned as the “next target” after Pansare in Gaikwad’s phone conversations.

Mr. Wagle, however, rejected the security detail offered to him by the Maharashtra government.

“The government did not specify whether any threat emanated from the Sanstha. They said they were offering a security blanket in view of the general threat perception,” said Mr. Wagle in Mumbai.

Mr. Wagle ran afoul of the Sanatan when four years back, its activist walked out of his programme in a huff. According to him, he received a warning in the Sanatan Prabhat (the Sanstha’s mouthpiece) as recently as last week.