The cross examination of witnesses in the Gauri Lankesh murder trial entered day 2 on Tuesday with the defence counsel focussing their attention on a key witness: Syed Shabbir, a gun shop owner from Mysuru. His testimony helped the police identify K T Naveen Kumar, a Hindutva activist from Maddur, who was the alleged gunrunner in the murder of the journalist.
According to the chargesheet filed by the Karnataka police Special Investigation Team (SIT), Shabbir sold an airgun to an associate of K T Naveen Kumar who wanted the weapon to practice for another assasination he was plotting. His arrest, police say, thwarted a plot to kill rationalist and author K S Bhagwan.
It was quite by chance that the police discovered that the 37-year-old Naveen was the gunrunner in the Gauri murder case. The founder of an outfit called Hindu Yuva Sene, Naveen was initially arrested by the police for plotting to kill K S Bhagwan. But further investigation showed that he was not only involved in the Gauri case but also part of the larger Hindutva terror network which was involved in the assassinations of left thinkers Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar.
The chargesheet filed by the SIT in the case found a conspiracy involving 18 people linked to a group that considered Gauri Lankesh’s views ‘anti-Hindu’. The investigation found that the plot was hatched by Amol Kale alias Topiwala alias Bhai Saheb, a former leader of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, which is affiliated to the Sanatan Sanstha. He is alleged to have arranged for the killers to be trained and provided with weapons. The SIT was given a cash award for cracking the case by the state government as well as the Union Home Minister’s medal for excellence for 2019.
The trial began on Monday with the court recording evidence from Anil Kumar, a witness in the case and from Kavitha Lankesh, the sister of the slain journalist. The defence lawyers sought to distance Hindutva groups from the case, insinuating that the journalist had angered Naxal groups by facilitating the surrender of some ultras.