PANJIM: Karnataka Police investigating the murder of rationalist Dr M M Kalburgi of Dharwad suspect foul play in Maharashtra Police arresting Samir Gaikwad, a Sanatan Sanstha volunteer in the murder of Govind Pansare, another rationalist, in Kolhapur.
Sources in the Kalburgi investigation team reveal they received information regarding Gaikwad and Rudra Patil from the Head Intelligence Office Banglore, but once they started probing into Gaikwad in Miraj and Sangli, the Maharashtra Police arrested Gaikwad in the Pansare murder case.
The source, who is an officer, said that on September 12 & 13 the Karanataka Police team investigating the Kalburgi murder was stationed in Sangli where they interrogated Gaikwad for almost three hours but on learning nothing, the team returned to Karnataka in search of more definite evidence.
“We had received intelligence from our headquarters at Bangalore and were verifying the facts. Pansare was murdered in February this year and Kalburgi was murdered in August, both under mysterious circumstances and leaving no clue. My question is that despite knowing we are looking for the same accused and possibly linking both cases why did Maharashtra Police arrest Gaikwad on September 16 before Karnataka police could do so,” one of the officers from the Kalburgi investigating team said.
The team had visited Ramnathi-Ponda in Goa to look for Gaikwad’s wife who was residing in the Sanatan Sanstha Ashram since 2012 but left without learning of her whereabouts. The officer said there was no family enmity or property disputes that can provide motives to the murder. He said the three murders, of Narendra Dabolkar, Pansare and Kalburgi, were of a similar nature and were definitely linked with some common factor.
