Activist Narendra Dabholkar murder case: 2 get life imprisonment, 3 acquitted

NEW DELHI: A Pune court on Friday found two accused guilty in the 2013 murder case of activist Narendra Dabholkar. The two were sentenced to life imprisonment. The other three, including key accused Virendrasinh Tawde, were acquitted by the court.
Pune special court pronounced the verdict in the Dabholkar murder trial, almost 11 years after the veteran rationalist was gunned down on August 20, 2013, by two bike-borne men on the Vitthal Ramji Shinde bridge near Omkareshwar temple.
The court awarded life in prison to Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar and a fine of Rs 5 lakh. Accused Tawde, Sanjeev Punalekar and Vikram Bhave were let go for want of evidence.
Dabholkar's murder had set off a chain of targeted killings of well-known rationalists over the next four years, including veteran Leftist leader Govind Pansare (in Kolhapur on February 16, 2015), scholar MM Kalburgi (in Dharwad on August 30, 2015) and journalist Gauri Lankesh (in Bengaluru on September 20, 2017).
The murder case was initially probed the case Pune police. The CBI took over the probe in 2014 following a Bombay High Court, order and arrested Tawde linked to the Hindu right-wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha, in June 2016.
According to the prosecution, Tawde was one of the masterminds of the murder.