Amid wide-spread criticism over the investigating agencies’ failure to crack the Narenda Dabholkar murder case even two years after the sensational crime, the Maharashtra Government on Thursday announced its decision to depute a seven-member team of its police officers to assist CBI in the investigations of the much-discussed case.
A month after the CBI wrote to the State Home ministry seeking deputation of “five to six” police officers from the State to assist the agency in investigating the Narendra Dabholkar murder case, Maharashtra Chief Minister tweeted: “As per CBI’s demand for additional manpower from State Government, we have decided to depute a seven-member team to assist CBI to probe the Narendra Dabholkar case. This will consist of one ACP, four Inspectors and two PSIs.”
The Chief Minister’s two tweets on the State Government’s decision to depute a team of police officers came on the second death anniversary day of renowned rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
Sixty-nine-year-old Dabholkar was shot dead from a point blank range by two motor-bicycle riding gunmen - aged between 25 and 30 years, while he was taking a morning walk on the Omkareshwar bridge located in the heart of Pune, on August 20, 2013.
The brutal gunning down of Dabholkar -who had long been crusading for the passage of Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Bill in the Maharashtra legislature - had caused a major furore in the State. Given that Pune had failed to make any headway into the investigations of the murder case, the Maharashtra Government had faced criticism from various quarters for months on end.
With the State police having failed to make any headway in the investigations into the case, the Bombay High Court had transferred the case to the CBI on May 9, 2014, after overruling the objections raised by the State Government.
Having set up special teams to crack the case, Pune police had sent its personnel to Madhya Pradesh and Goa for investigations. However, the investigators had ruled out the hand of a Hindu right-wing organisation in the murder.
In January last year, the police arrested two suspects - Manish Nagori and Vikas Khandelwar, both residents of Hathkanangale in Kolhapur district, and booked in the Dahbolkar murder case. Both had originally been arrested by Thane police from Mumbra on August 20, the day of Dabholkar’s murder, and three arms had been recovered from them.
Pune police questioned them and claimed that one of the three weapons, a 7.65 mm pistol, was used in the Dabholkar murder. The investigators had also claimed that Nagori had supplied the weapons to Khandelwar. However, later on April 22 this year, both the accused were granted bail by a Pune magisterial court after the police failed to file a charge-sheet against them within the stipulated 90-day period.
As had been the case with the State police, the CBI has so far not achieved any breakthrough in the Dabholkar murder case even 14 to 15 months after it took over the investigations in the case.
In a letter written to the State Home Department in July last month, the CBI had attributed the lack of breakthrough in the case to the shortage of manpower and requested the State Government to depute “five to six” officers to assist the apex investigating agency.