The Karnataka Police Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that there appears to be a connection between journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalist M.M. Kalburgi murder cases. The state police also told the apex court that it will file a chargesheet in the Kalburgi murder case in three months.
A bench comprising Justices U.U. Lalit and Navin Sinha is hearing the matter related to the killing of the noted scholar and rationalist at Dharwad in 2015. The top court on November 26 had pulled up the Karnataka government for "doing nothing and just fooling around" in the investigation and had indicated that it may transfer the case to Bombay High Court.
The Supreme Court also said that if there is a "common thread" among the murders of social activists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, journalist Gauri Lankesh and Kalburgi, then one agency can investigate all the four cases.
The bench asked the CBI to inform it by January first week as to why it should not investigate all the four cases if there appears a link among all the murders. The counsel for the Maharashtra government informed the court that the CBI is investigating the murder cases of social activist and professor Narendra Dabholkar after the Bombay High Court transferred the probes to the agency.
Noted scholar and rationalist M M Kalburgi was killed at Dharwad in 2015, Pansare, a social activist was also killed the same year. Lankesh, a journalist was killed on September 5, 2017 in Bengaluru whereas social activist and rationalist Dabholkar was assassinated on August 20, 2013.
