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Supreme Court for CBI probe if 'common thread' found in murders of activists

This move is a hint that the CBI, which is probing Dabholkar's murder, may be asked to probe into the murders of the other three rationalist thinkers too.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to produce evidence to show a "common thread" linking the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, MM Kalburgi, Govind Pansare, and Gauri Lankesh.

This move is a hint that the CBI, which is probing Dabholkar's murder, may be asked to probe into the murders of the other three rationalist thinkers too.

The suggestion came in respsonse to a petition filed by Umadevi Kalburgi who approached the court to request constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) for a fresh probe into her husband's death. Seventy-seven year old Kalburgi, the former Vice-Chancellor of Hampi University, was shot dead at his residence in Dharwad, Karnataka, on August 30, 2015.

The Karnataka Police, probing Kalburgi's murder, brought a sealed cover status report to the court to justify the delay of three years in filing the charge sheet. The state counsel — Devdutt Kamat — revealed that while probing another similar death of journalist Gauri Lankesh, crucial leads had emerged linking it to the Kalburgi murder case.

The bench of Justices UU Lalit and Navin Sinha asked CBI counsel PK Dey whether similar links had emerged in their investigation into the Dabholkar murder too. Kalburgi's wife, in her petition, alleged that there was a common link between the murder of her husband and that of Dabholkar and Pansare, who were killed in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune, while Pansare was killed near Kolhapur in Maharashtra. Pansare's murder is being probed by Maharashtra Police.

CBI sought time to take instructions following which the court fixed the matter for further hearing in January. The bench told CBI, "These four deaths may be completely unconnected incidents, in which case they must be separately investigated. But, if there is a common thread, then they must be investigated by the same agnecy."

Just In Case

Supreme Court said, “The 4 deaths may be unrelated, in which case they must be probed separately. But, if there is a common thread, then they must be investigated by the same agnecy.”

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