Hamid Dabholkar, son of slain Maharashtra rationalist Narendra Dabholkar on Friday hailed the Karnataka Police Special Investigation Team's (SIT) revelation linking the killings of his father, journalist Gauri Lankesh, Kannada scholar M. M. Kalburgi and leftist thinker Govind Pansare.
The SIT team's investigations revealed that the gun used by Parshuram Wagmare, who was arrested in connection with the murder of Lankesh, was the same used in the murder of Kalburgi. It further suggested that the gun used in the killing of Pansare was the one used to kill Dabholkar.
Speaking to ANI, Hamid suggested that these developments could prove to be vital in solving the pending murder cases, while it also hinted towards the nature of the killings.
"I think it is a very important development with respect to the investigation of these four murders, this can give the lead to the other cases. It also suggests that the killings were executed by the same group," Hamid told ANI.
"The ones to pull the trigger may have been different, but this establishes that the killings were not done because of personal rivalries, it is because of ideological differences. These are political murders. I am very hopeful now that from these links, the other unsolved murder cases can be solved," he said.
He further stated that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should also be able to make the kind of progress that the Karnataka Police's SIT was able to achieve so far.
On a related note, the SIT arrested Wagmare, who is a right-wing extremist, on June 12 in connection with the murder of Gauri Lankesh on September 5, 2017.
Earlier, five persons- K. T. Naveen Kumar alias Hotte Manja, Amol Kale, Manohar Edve, Sujeeth Kumar alias Praveen and Amit Degvekar were also arrested in connection with the case.
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