Explained: Dabholkar-Lankesh murders— What the investigations into violent right-wing activism show | Explained News, The Indian Express

Explained: Dabholkar-Lankesh murders— What the investigations into violent right-wing activism show | Explained News, The Indian Express

Written by Johnson T A |Edited by Explained Desk |Bengaluru |Updated: May 26, 2019 6:16:17 pm

Explained: Dabholkar-Lankesh murders— What the investigations into violent right-wing activism show

Both Punalekar and Bhave are closely linked with the radical rightwing Sanatan Sanstha organisation. Punalekar is an office bearer of the lawyers' body Hindu Vidhidnya Parishad, and has been representing some of the accused arrested earlier in the Dabholkar murder case.

The SIT said in the additional chargesheet that Lankesh was murdered by a group whose key members acted according to principles and guidelines outlined in a book called Kshatra Dharma Sadhana published by the Sanatan Sanstha.

The arrest of a lawyer, Sanjiv Punalekar, and his assistant, Vikram Bhave, by the CBI in Pune on May 25 in connection with the killing of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, have underlined, again, the alleged links between this murder in 2013, and those of the leftist thinker Govind Pansare and Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi in 2015, and journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017.