Journalist Gauri Lankesh’s sister on Friday moved the Supreme Court against its suggestion to club the investigation into her murder with those of writer MM Kalburgi, and rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, and hand it over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
On December 11, the top court had favoured a CBI investigation into the murders, if there was a “common thread” between them. The court had asked the investigation agency, which is probing the killing of Dabholkar, to inform it by the first week of January whether it would like to inquire into the murders of Lankesh, Kalburgi and Pansare too. The CBI filed its response in a sealed cover.
But on Friday, Kavitha Lankesh told the top court that the Karnataka Police’s inquiry into her sister’s murder was at an “advanced stage”, The Indian Express reported on Saturday. “If at this stage, any change is made or the investigation is shifted to any other agency, the entire process would be derailed,” she added.
“When the Karnataka Special Investigation Team has made so much headway in the case [Lankesh’s killing], and the CBI has not, despite the passage of seven years [since Dabholkar’s murder], why should it [Lankesh’s case] go to CBI?” Kavitha Lankesh told Scroll.in.
In her petition, Kavita Lankesh said Karnataka has been conducting the investigation with “great speed and urgency” and the investigation “has been committed to a court though not yet completed”. The top court will hear the matter next on February 26.
Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune on August 2013, and Pansare, a Communist Party of India leader, was killed in Kolhapur in February 2015. Kalburgi was shot dead in Karnataka’s Dharwad in August 2015. Gauri Lankesh was murdered outside her home in Bengaluru in September 2017.
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