11 Years After Narendra Dabholkar's Murder, Pune Court Convicts 2, Acquits 3

New Delhi: Eleven years after rationalist Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead, a Pune court convicted two and acquitted three on May 10.

Bar and Bench has reported that sessions judge P.P. Jadhav convicted Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar and sentenced them to life imprisonment, along with penalty of Rs 5 lakh. Dr Virendrasingh Tawade, Vikram Bhave and Sanjeev Punalekar were acquitted. The accused were all linked to the Sanatan Sanstha organisation.

Andure, Kalaskar and Tawade are in judicial custody at present.

It has been reported earlier that Sharad Kalaskar is the common thread in the murders of Dabholkar, activist Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh.

Sanjeev Punalekar, who has been acquitted, was their lawyer and was later arrested after having been charged with disappearance of evidence.

Dabholkar, a medical doctor, was the founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS). He was 67 when he was killed. MANS campaigned for social reform and against superstition and blind beliefs. Dabholkar had been painted as “anti-Hindu” and had received multiple threats to his life before his death.

The court said, according to Bar and Bench, that the plan to kill Dabholkar aimed to ensure that no one should undertake the work of MANS.

The case of his murder was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2014. The CBI was reprimanded by the Bombay high court for dragging its feet in the case.

As the Bar and Bench report noted, trial had commenced only in 2021 though the sessions case had been instituted in 2016.

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