The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on September took custody of two accused arrested for the 2017 Gauri Lankesh murder case in order to interrogate them in connection with the alleged plot to conduct disruptive activities in Maharashta.
The ATS has since August 10 arrested eight people for allegedly planning to conduct attacks at various locations in the State, including the Sunburn festival in Pune. A large cache of arms, ammunition and explosives has been recovered from the accused.
According to ATS sources, the agency got custody of Lankesh murder accused Bharat Khurne and Sujeet Kumar from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on September 12.
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“Interrogation of the accused arrested earlier indicated that Mr. Khurne and Mr. Kumar also received training in handling arms and explosives along with them. We need to find out if, apart from the Gauri Lankesh murder, they also had an active role in any other crimes linked to the outfit,” an ATS officer told
The ATS, after picking them up, first produced them in a local court in Bengaluru and got transit remand, after which they were brought to Mumbai. They were subsequently produced in a special Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) court, where they were remanded in police custody till September 17, officials said.
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Mr. Khurne’s farm is alleged to have been used to train Parshuram Waghmore, said to be the gunman in Lankesh’s murder while Mr. Kumar is alleged to have been part of the murder plot. The ATS suspects that Mr. Khurne’s farmhouse was also used while training Vaibhav Raut and his co-accused.
The alleged mastermind of the Lankesh murder plot, Amol Kale, is also said to be closely associated with Shrikant Pangarkar, who was arrested by the Maharashta ATS in August.
The development is just one more link between the alleged plot busted by the Maharashta ATS and murders suspected to have been carried out by Hindu right wing outfits. Earlier this year, the ATS, while interrogating arrested accused Sharad Kalaskar, had allegedly found out that he was one of the two shooters who shot Narendra Dabholkar in Pune in 2013. The ATS subsequently picked up Aurangabad resident Sachin Andure, alleged to be the second shooter, and handed him over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the case. The CBI subsequently got Mr. Kalaskar’s custody from the court.
The Maharashtra ATS, the Karnataka SIT and the CBI are also conducting investigations to find possible links to the murders of Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi.