Investigating agencies told Bombay High Court on Friday that they found some commonalities in the way rationalists Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar were murdered and that they will soon start a country wide search to look for the pistols used for the murder.
A division bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and GS Patel was hearing a bunch of petitions filed by members of the Pansare and Dabholkar families. The Central Bureau of Investigation’s special investigation team (CBI SIT) is investigating the Dabholkar murder and the State Crime Investigation Department (CID) is probing the Pansare murder.
The additional solicitor general and CBI’s counsel Anil Singh told the court that a country wide operation will be carried out within a month to search for the four countrymade pistols used to kill Dabholkar. It is believed that the pistols were dismantled and thrown in a creek next to Thane.
He said the agency is waiting for confirmations and permissions from some government agencies to commence the operation. The court responded to this by saying the operation should not be delayed, and must be carried out before the onset of monsoon.
Senior counsel Ashok Mundargi representing CID reiterated that the main conspirators in Pansare’s murder have been arrested and they will soon catch hold of the attackers.
The bench then questioned if there are any commonalities between the two crimes. To this Mr. Mundargi said, “yes to some extent commonality is established between the two crimes.”
The court then remarked, “we feel like there is some spark missing in this case [Pansare]. It is not the case that the shooters will never be arrested. They will be nabbed one day. But it should have been done by now. It is the credibility of the probe agency that is at stake. It is a case where eminent persons like Dabholkar and Pansare have been killed.”
“Political leaders, who are in power, and made promises to the public that they stand for peace and constitutional rights of citizens should ensure this,” the court said.
Dabholkar, a well-known anti-superstition activist, was shot dead on August 20, 2013 in Pune.
Pansare was shot on February 16, 2015 near his house in Kolhapur in western Maharashtra. He died four days later.
