Eight men accused of murdering firebrand activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh to further their agenda of establishing a Hindu Rashtra have now gotten bail. Among them, four of them, Bharat Kurane, Sujith Kumar, Sudhanva Gondalekar, and Srikanth Jagannath, were granted bail on September 4, Wednesday, by the Karnataka High Court, a day before the seventh anniversary of her murder on September 5, 2017. 

Bharat Kurane applied for bail in the High Court on August 1, while Sujith Kumar, Sudhanva Gondalekar, and Srikanth Jagannath filed their bail pleas on July 31. 

In the last eight months, four of the accused obtained bail. Mohan Nayak was the first accused to be granted bail by the Karnataka High Court in December 2023. The prosecution objected to granting him bail, arguing that he conspired with 17 others as part of an organised criminal gang to kill Gauri and harm other people as well, and that if given bail, they could tamper with evidence. However, the High Court noted that Nayak had cooperated with the trial and granted him bail. After that, three others – Amit Degwekar, KT Naveen Kumar, and HL Suresh – obtained bail in the HC on grounds of parity on July 16. 

TNM had previously reported in a three-part series how Amol Kale, an engineer who became radicalised by Sanatan Sanstha’s literature, allegedly hatched the conspiracy to murder Gauri. Sanatan Sanstha is a Goa-based extremist Hindutva organisation. 

Amol planned Gauri’s murder and put together the team of 18 people who executed it. 

Read the first story in the three-part series: Why Gauri Lankesh was assassinated: The story of an indoctrinated engineer

Parashuram Waghmore, a college dropout hailing from Sindagi in Vijayapura district, shot the bullets that killed Gauri. Ganesh Miskin was the man who rode the motorcycle and took Parashuram to the Gauri’s house, where she was shot in front of the gate of her residence. 

While these three are the main accused, each of the other 15 accused had a clearly defined role to play before, during, and after Gauri’s murder. Amol Kale, who planned the murder, assigned each of them various tasks, including surveillance, arranging the logistics, such as vehicles and accommodation for the killers, and lastly, destruction of evidence. 

‘Organised crime syndicate’

According to the police investigation, the 18 accused were part of an “organised criminal syndicate,” which began to take shape in around 2010 under the guidance of Sanatan Sanstha leader Vinod Tawade. Another Sanstha leader, Shashikant Rane, who died in 2018, had also guided the syndicate and provided financial assistance through Amit Degwekar, the chargesheet noted.

All the 18 accused are either former or current members of the Sanatan Sanstha or the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, and they were influenced by a book, Kshaatra Dharma Sadhana, which identifies “anti-Hindu” elements of society as “durjan” (evil-doer) and calls for their elimination. 

“They are like-minded people who wish to establish a Hindu Rashtra, and in order to achieve it through terrorisation... they have gathered in violation of the law and have established a secret and an unnamed organised crime syndicate,” the chargesheet said.

The accused met each other over a period of several years, often never knowing each other’s real names, with some of the accused even having two or three aliases. The accused had an elaborate means of communicating with each other involving multiple SIM cards, calls from phone booths, and the use of basic mobile phones and not smartphones. They also had a system of code words that they used to refer to targets they planned to harm, terms for surveillance, CCTV cameras, etc. The accused also met to discuss Hindu dharma and discuss “threats” to the Hindu religion. 

Guns and bombs

One section of the chargesheet describes the disturbing weapons training that the accused received over eight years in 19 camps organised in multiple locations in Maharashtra and Karnataka. 

Sharad Kalaskar learnt how to make pistols so that the members of the syndicate could be given weapons training. Rajesh Bangera and Bharat Kurane provided live bullets for the weapons training. Amit Degwekar and Rajesh Bangera often acted as weapons trainers for the gang. 

Eight camps were held in Jalna, Aurangabad, Pune, Nashik, and Kolhapur districts in Maharashtra, and nine were held in Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada, Belagavi, and Dharwad districts in Karnataka. Thirteen of these camps trained the accused in firing country-made pistols and air pistols. In five of these camps, the accused were trained in bomb-making, and bombs were even detonated to test them. 

A three-day training camp in November 2015 was held in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, where Amol Kale, Amit Baddi, Sharad Kalaskar, Shrikant Pingarkar, and Vasudev Suryawanshi learnt how to make electric circuit bombs, pipe bombs, and hand grenades. They even  detonated a pipe bomb to test it. 

Of the 18 accused, only four – KT Naveen Kumar, Manohar Yadve, Suresh HL, and Rishikesh Deodikar – did not attend any of these camps. One of the weapons training camps was held in November 2017, two months after Gauri’s murder. 

All of the four got bail on September 4 have attended these training camps. Two of them, Bharat Kurane and Sudhanva Gondalekar, attended the one in November 2017, two months after Gauri’s murder. That camp had eight attendees in all, including Amol Kale, Parashuram Waghmore, Ganesh Miskin, Amit Baddi, Rajesh Bangera, and Sharad Kalaskar. That camp had firing practice with air pistols and training about country-made guns. 

How it started 

While the accused knew each other since 2010, the plot to kill Gauri took shape in June 2016 at a house in Belagavi that had been rented out by Bharat Kurane. During this meeting, Sujith Kumar showed Amol Kale, Amit Degwekar, Vikas Patil, and Manohar Yadve a video from a public event in Mangaluru where Gauri had made a speech. TNM had previously reported how the assassins used a speech by Gauri and took it out of context to whip up hate. 

In the last week of August 2016, the accused met again in the same house. During that meeting, Ganesh Miskin, Amit Baddi, Amit Degwekar, Bharat Kurane, Sharad Kalaskar, and Vikas Patil decided that Gauri was a “durjan” according to Kshatra Dharma Sadhana and decided to kill her. 

Once the decision was made, Amol Kale assigned various tasks to each of the accused. Nearly a year was spent in preparations, with the accused travelling to different places across the state to carry out the instructions. One of the first things Amol Kale did was to tell Vasudev Suryavanshi to get a motorcycle. Vasudev and Sujith Kumar travelled to Davanagere in the last week of October 2016 and stole a motorcycle parked near Bapuji Hospital. 

In January-February of 2017, on Amol Kale’s instructions, Vikas Patil went to Bengaluru and gave HL Suresh the task of finding the address of Gauri Lankesh. Suresh found the office address of Gauri at a library in Vijayanagara. After verifying the office address, Suresh travelled to Mangaluru to hand over the address written on a piece of paper to Vikas Patil at a park in Mangaluru. Vikas Patil later gave the location to Amol Kale. 

Amol Kale passed the address to Amit Baddi and told him to go to Bengaluru and tail Gauri to learn her home address and daily routine. In March and April, Amit Baddi and Ganesh Miskin stayed at a house in Lalbagh to keep tabs on Gauri.

In May 2017, Amol Kale travelled to Kushalnagar in Kodagu district to meet Mohan Nayak. Kale asked Nayak to look for a house in an area that did not have any commercial buildings, banks, ATMs, or other buildings with CCTV cameras nearby. Amol Kale had told him that the house would be required for a month and there should be no paper trail for the rent. Kale even told Nayak that he should obtain the house under the pretext of getting acupuncture treatment. 

Around that time, a training camp for pistol firing was organised in a shed belonging to Bharat Kurane in Chikale village in Khanapur taluk of Belagavi district. Rajesh Bangera trained Amol Kale, Parashuram Waghmore, Amit Baddi, Ganesh Miskin, and Bharat Kurane at the camp. 

In June, Sujith Kumar met KT Naveen Kumar at the latter’s house and arranged for live bullets. Sujith took them to Belagavi to show them to Amit Degvekar, Vikas Patil, and Manohar Yadve. 

Towards the end of June, Amol Kale, Ganesh Miskin, Amit Baddi, Amit Degvekar, and Manohar Yadve were in Bengaluru and decided that the information from the surveillance carried out on Gauri was satisfactory. 

In July, Amol Kale, Vikas Patil, and Mohan Nayak begin to look for a house for the assassins. At the same time, Vikas Patil told Suresh Kumar to look for a small house, either a shed or a small shophouse – a house with a shop attached – in an area where labourers live to store the guns and bullets safely. 

In the third week of August, the accused held a three-day meeting in Belagavi in the house that Bharat Kurane rented out. Amol Kale was the leader of the meeting, and Parashuram Waghmore, Ganesh Miskin, Amit Baddi, Bharat Kurane, Sudhanva Gondalekar, Sharad Kalaskar, and Srikant Pangarkar were present. 

On the first day of the meeting, Amol Kale confirmed the tasks he had previously assigned to the other accused. Parashuram Waghmore was to fire the pistol. Ganesh Miskin was to drive Parashuram to the spot. As the lookout, Miskin too was supposed to carry a gun with live bullets and take care of anyone who interrupted them. 

Two locations had been identified for certain crucial tasks on the day of the murder: the underpass near the NICE Road-Hemmigepura Road junction, and the Chinmayi school. 

Miskin and Waghmore were supposed to stop near Chinmayi school, change their clothes and the license plate of the motorcycle they were riding, wear full-face helmets, and then proceed to Gauri’s house. After carrying out the murder, they were supposed to return to the same spot and hand over the clothes and shoes that they had worn, along with the guns, to Baddi. During one trip to Bengaluru, they carried out ‘route rehearsals'—a dry run of their movements from the time they left their house to getting back home after the murder.

Shrikant Pangarkar briefed all the accused on the precautions they were to undertake before, during, and after the murder. He also gave them legal training and told them what to do in case they got caught. Bharat Kurane bought Ganesh Miskin and Parashuram Waghmore the clothes they would use for the murder.

On the third day of the meeting, Sharad Kalaskar and Bharat Kurane took Parashuram Waghmore and Ganesh Miskin to a hilly area in Kinaye in Belagavi district for target practice. They set up a target tied to a tree. Five country-made guns, including the gun used to kill Gauri, with 7.65 mm bullets were used for target practice. Kalaskar was the one who showed Parashuram Waghmore and Ganesh Miskin how to use the pistols. 

That day, after target practice, Sharad Kalaskar packed two bags and handed them over to Amol Kale. One had the three pistols that Parashuram and Ganesh chose along with 25 live bullets, and the other contained the clothes and shoes that they would wear while carrying out the murder. 

Arrangements had been made for three houses in Bengaluru—one was Suresh’s house in Seegehalli, another was a house in Thagachaguppe near Kumbalgodu, which had been arranged by Mohan Nayak, and a third was a small shophouse where they stored the weapons. 

Now, all that was left was to commit the murder. 

Bharat Kurane arrived in Bengaluru on September 2 and picked up Parashuram Waghmore, Ganesh Miskin, and Amit Baddi at the Nelamangala toll gate the following day and went to the house in Thagachaguppe. All of them had left their cell phones behind on Amol Kale’s instructions. Amol and Vikas stayed in Suresh’s house in Seegehalli, which he had vacated for the duration of their plan. 

Around 7 pm on September 4, as they had practiced, Parashuram Waghmore and Ganesh Miskin set out on the motorcycle with one gun each and the bag that had their clothes in it. Near Chinmayi school, they changed into the clothes and shoes bought for the murder, pasted a sticker with a different license number on the license plate of the motorcycle they were riding, loaded their pistols, wore full-face helmets, and proceeded to Gauri Lankesh’s house. When they reached, they realised that she was already home. 

On September 5, they set out an hour earlier and repeated their actions near Chinmayi school and reached Gauri’s house at around 7.50 pm and lay in wait. She reached her house around 8.10 pm. When she stepped out of her car to open the gate, Parashuram Waghmore fired four bullets. Three bullets hit her, killing her almost immediately. The fourth bullet was later recovered by the police from the wall of her house. 

They went back the same way they had arrived, and stopped once more near Chinmayi school to change out of their clothes and shoes. They put these and the guns they had used into separate bags, and handed them over to Amit Baddi, who was waiting in a Maruti Omni van near the underpass near the NICE Road-Hemmigepura Road junction. 

After leaving the bike at Thagachaguppe house, Waghmore and Miskin were dropped off by Kurane at Nelamangala toll, from where they went back to their hometowns. 

Amit Baddi and Bharath Kurane kept the bags with the guns and clothes in Suresh’s house in Seegehalli, and also returned to their hometowns the next day.

Amol Kale and Vikas locked the guns and clothes in separate suitcases and left them in the Seegehalli house. They took the keys and went back to Belagavi. 

Over the next couple of days, Suresh started destroying evidence. He cleaned the house, took the suitcase with the weapons back to his house, burnt the extra license plates in the toilet of his house, and threw several objects used in the murder off the Magadi-Tavarekere Road and near Thippegondanahalli reservoir. 

Sudhanva Gondalekar and Amit Baddi came to Bengaluru on September 15 and called Suresh when they were near Seegehalli. Suresh gave the bag with the guns and live bullets to Sudhanva Gondalekar, who then brought it to Belagavi and handed it over to Sharad Kalaskar before returning to his hometown. 

Separately, Amit Baddi had the motorcycle used in the murder sent from Bengaluru to Sharad Kalaskar in Belagavi. Sharad then sent the bike to a man in Kadalagi village in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra. 

When they learnt of Naveen Kumar’s arrest, Amol Kale, Sudhanva Gondalekar, and Rishikesh Deodikar made a decision. They moved all the weapons in their possession – guns, including the one used to kill Gauri and bombs – from Sharad’s room in Belagavi to a village in Satara, Maharashtra. Amol Kale then gave instructions to all the accused to destroy their “one-to-one” mobile phones, which they did. 

When the investigation inched closer to the accused, Amol Kale, Sujith Kumar, Manohar Yadve, and Rishikesh Deodikar fled to the house in Satara, Maharashtra. They sent the guns and other explosive materials to Gondalekar’s relative and from there to Pune. 

Finally, on July 23, 2018, Sudhanva Gondalekar, Sharad Kalaskar, Rishikesh Deodikar, and Vaibhav Rawat (who is not an accused in Gauri’s murder) decided to destroy the guns used to kill Gauri. Sharad Kalaskar and Rishikesh Deodikar dismantled the barrels and sliders of four guns, including the one used to kill Gauri. Sharad Kalaskar and Vaibhav Rawat then went in Rawat’s car to the Ullas river near Thane, off the Mumbai-Nashik highway, and Sharad threw the guns into the water. 

Read: Investigate Sanatan Sanstha over Gauri Lankesh and other murders: Activists to govt

Jail or bail?

Kavitha Lankesh and the state government had filed separate petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the bail granted to Mohan Nayak. The court, however, which heard both petitions together, dismissed their pleas, saying that it was not inclined to interfere with the Karnataka High Court’s order. The SC noted that Mohan Nayak had cooperated with the trial court and had not sought any adjournments. 

However, the Supreme Court said that if Nayak violated any of the bail conditions, the petitioners were free to seek cancellation of bail.

Kavitha Lankesh, Gauri’s sister and the complainant in the case, told TNM that she sought cancellation of Mohan Nayak’s bail because of their actions. “How will society feel safe if they are out? If the courts rule that they are not guilty, I will accept it. But until then, they should be in jail.”

Arvind Narrain, of the Karnataka People’s Union of Civil Liberties, told TNM that the accepted principle is that bail is the rule and jail is the exception. “Bail is denied on the grounds of the accused tampering with evidence or witnesses. The argument cannot be that bail should be denied because the accused have committed a heinous offence.” However, he conceded that the courts have often applied this principle unevenly.

Kavitha told TNM that she had urged the government to set up special courts so that the trial could be sped up. In December, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had directed that a special court be set up to try the cases of Gauri and MM Kalburgi’s murders. The office of the Registrar of the Karnataka High Court confirmed that they had replied to the proposal, but declined to reveal what action had been taken. 

Repeated calls and messages to Law Minister HK Patil went unanswered.

“I want the government to set up a special court so that the trial is completed. We want closure. It has been seven years,” Kavita said.

This reporting is made possible with support from Report for the World, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project.