Gauri Lankesh murder case: SIT trying to recover weapon bits thrown into Vasai Creek

Key accused in Gauri murder allegedly dismantled pistols

December 29, 2018 11:53 pm | Updated December 30, 2018 08:37 am IST - Bengaluru

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) is trying to recover any one of the five country-made pistols Sharad Kalaskar, a key accused in journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh murder case, allegedly dismantled and disposed of in Vasai Creek, near Mumbai.

These pistols include the crucial one used in Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh murder cases.

Kalaskar dismantled them into three parts each and threw them into the creek from the bridge on July 23, as per his statement.

The police are hopeful that parts of the pistols that were heavy would have settled down on the creek bed. Attempts were made to recover them with the help of divers, and later using SONAR technology, but they failed.

Dredging plan

The police are now considering dredging the creek bed.

“We are not looking for the particular murder weapon itself. Recovery of any part of the five pistols reportedly disposed of in the creek will be critical material evidence in the case,” an official said.

The police have recovered cartridges and bullet pieces of all the five weapons from a venue of arms training camp held by the accused in Belagavi in August third week, just two weeks before Gauri Lankesh was killed.

Amol Kale, the kingpin in the Gauri murder case, reportedly brought five country-made pistols to Belagavi in August third week, and the hit team — Parashuram Waghmore, Ganesh Miskin and Amit Baddi — camping at Bharat Kurne’s farm in Chikale, practised shooting with all the five pistols in a nearby forest area. Finally the weapon, used in two earlier murders, was selected.Miskin was given another pistol of the lot to shoot anyone with Gauri Lankesh, if they came in the way of the hit.

SIT identified the forest area near Chikale, the venue of the crucial shooting practice session. A team of over 150 officers from the SIT and officials from the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, armed with Deep Search Metal Detectors searched the entire area three times for over six days. They recovered cartridges and bullet pieces. A ballistic examination of them established that one of the cartridges found in the forest area was of a bullet fired from the murder weapon in the Gauri case. This had established that the murder weapon was in Belagavi two weeks before the murder, and with other evidence establishing the presence of the accused in Belagavi during the period, and this has now emerged as key evidence linking the murder weapon to the accused in the case.

This has also established a link between the murder weapon and four other pistols that were used at the training session. Thus, recovery of any parts of any of the five pistols from Vasai Creek would be crucial evidence, officials said.

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