CBI probe if ‘common thread’ found in Kalburgi, Lankesh murders: SC

New Delhi, December 11

The Supreme Court on Tuesday favoured a CBI probe into the murders of rationalist MM Kalburgi, social activist Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh if there is a “common thread” in these incidents which occurred over the past five years.

The top court asked the CBI to inform it by January first week whether it would like to investigate these three murder cases as it is already probing the murder of social activist Narendra Dabholkar.

The Karnataka Police in its status report told the top court that there appears to be an “intimate connection” between the murders of Kalburgi in 2015 and Gauri Lankesh in 2017.

A Bench of Justices UU Lalit and Navin Sinha observed that one probe agency should investigate all the four cases, if prima facie it appears that there is a “common thread” in the murders.

“There appear to be four deaths. There are two schools of thought. First, if all these murders are unconnected, then the police should investigate those separately. Secondly, if prima facie it appears that there is a common thread between all these murders, then in the fitness of things, the investigation should be done by one single agency,” the Bench told the counsel for CBI.

It asked the CBI counsel whether the agency could probe all these murder cases, to which he replied that instructions need to be sought in this regard.

“You come back in January first week and inform us whether the CBI can probe all these cases if there appears to be a common thread,” the Bench told the probe agency counsel.

At the outset, advocate Devadatt Kamat, appearing for Karnataka Government, said that certain leads have emerged in the investigation of the Kalburgi murder case and there appears to be some connection with the Gauri Lankesh murder case.

“This case (Kalburgi case) has some intimate connections with the Gauri Lankesh murder case. Key conspirators have been identified and certain recoveries have also been made. There are substantial developments in the past six months and in the next three months, charge sheet will be filed in the Kalburgi case,” Kamat told the Bench. — PTI