A day after the CBI filed a chargesheet against Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) activist Dr Virendrasinh Tawde, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the State CID on Thursday filed a charge-sheet against him and two others in the Govind Pansare murder case.
In a charge-sheet filed in the Kolhapur sessions court, the SIT named Tawde as the key accused and named Sanatan Sanstha activists Samir Gaikwad and Vinay Pawar as co-accused accused in the murder of CPI leader Govind Pansare who was shot dead in February 2015 by two then unidentified miscreants from a close range.
Tawde, whom the SIT had taken into custody in connection with the Pansare murder case, was on thursday produced before the Kolhapur Sessions court, which extended his police custody by nine days.
Thursday’s development established that the same miscreants were behind the murders of Pansare and renowned rationalist and anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, who was gunned down in Pune on August 20, 2013.
On Wednesday, the CBI had named Tawde as the key accused Akolkar and Pawar as co-accused in the Dabholkar murder case.
The fling of charge-sheet against Tawde and two others in the Govind Pansare murder came two and a half months after the Bombay High Court pulled up the State CID for its "slow progress" in its investigations in the Govind Pansare murder case and sought to know from the Maharashtra government if it had decided to hand over the probe in the Govind Pansare murder case to the CBI as claimed by the lawyer of the slain CPI leader's family.
Pansare (82) and his wife Uma (67) had been shot from a close range, near their residence “Ideal Housing Society” at around 8.30 am on February 16 2015, when the couple was returning from a morning walk from the Shivaji University campus at Kolhapur. Four days later, Pansare succumbed to injuries sustained in the shoot-out, while his wife Uma survived the attack.
Pansare’s murder, it may recalled, had come on the heels of a gruesome murder of 69-year-old anti-superstition campaigner Dabholkar, who was shot dead him 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 SIT had arrested Sanatan Sanstha activist Samir Gaikwad on September 16 last year. Subsequently, the SIT filed a charge-sheet against Sameer Gaikwad, the lone accused in the case.
The CBI has a strong reason to believe there is a common link among the murders of Dabholkar, Pansare and the 2009 Goa blasts case. This is given that the suspects behind all the three incidents like Tawade, Sarang Akolkar in the Dabholkar murder case, Sameer Gaikwad in the Pansare murder case and Akolkar, Rudra Patil and Praveen limkar – owe their allegiance to the Sanatan Sanstha.
So much so that the CBI investigations have revealed that the same motorcycle and weapons were used in the murders of both Dabholkar and Pansare.
Of them suspects, Tawade and Gaikwad are currently in the custody, while Akolkar, Rudra Patil and Praveen limkar have been absconding since the 2009 Goa blasts. Interestingly, the suspects behind the Goa blasts were reportedly in touch with Tawade before and after the incident.
One of the main reasons behind Pansare’s family insisting on the Maharashtra government transferring the investigating the CPI leader’s murder from the State CID to the CBI was the shoddy manner in which the central agency has gone about the investigations in the Dabholkar murder.