A court in Maharashtra’s Pune city on Tuesday said that it will frame charges against the accused in activist Narendra Dabholkar’s murder on September 15, The Indian Express reported.
After the framing of charges, the trial in the activist’s murder case will begin.
Dabholkar, an anti-superstition activist, was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013. Investigating agencies have said that his killing as well as the murders of activists Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017 were linked, and Hindu right-wing extremists were behind them.
“The court has taken up all the charges brought by us,” Special Public Prosecutor Prakash Suryavanshi said on Tuesday, according to the Hindustan Times. “We will communicate the charges to the Central Bureau of Investigation.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation took over the inquiry into Dabholkar’s murder from the Pune Police in 2014. The agency arrested Virendrasinh Tawde, a member of extremist Hindutva group Sanatan Sanstha, in 2016.
The CBI alleged that Tawade had masterminded the conspiracy to murder the activist, according to The Indian Express.
Two other members of Sanatan Sanstha – Sharad Kalaskar and Sachin Andure – were arrested in 2018. The next year, the CBI arrested lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar and his associate Vikram Bhave, who were also linked to the group.
On Tuesday, the special court in Pune said that Tawade, Kalaskar, Andure and Bhave will be charged for murder and criminal conspiracy. Punalekar will face charges for destroying evidence, according to PTI.
Tawade, Kalaskar and Andure are currently in judicial custody, The Indian Express reported. Punalekar and Bhave have been granted bail.
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