The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday, July 16, granted bail to three accused in the murder of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead in September 2017. The bail was granted to Amit Digvekar, KT Naveen Kumar, and HL Suresh by a bench headed by Justice S Vishwajith Shetty of the Kalaburagi bench.
As per reports, advocates Arun Shyam, Madhukar Deshpande, and Basavaraja Sappanavar, representing the accused, applied for the bail citing how athe co-accused in the same case, –Mohan Nayak, was granted bail in December 2023, on grounds of undue delay in the trial process.
At the same time, a key witness in the murder case – 46-year-old Madetira Thimmaiah – turned hostile and told the court that he was forced to make a confession by the police that he was in contact with some of the accused in the case.
In his confession statement in 2018, Thimmaiah had said that he had given his office space in Madikeri to Amit Digvekar and three other accused to meet and discuss various matters.
In November 2018, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case had filed a 10,000 page chargesheet naming 18 persons, including the three who got bail. The men belonged to different outfits such as the Sanatan Sanstha, HJS, and smaller Hindutva outfits like ShivPratishthan Hindustan.
Who are the accused who got bail and what were their alleged roles in the case?
In September 2022, TNM had accessed the chargesheet filed by the SIT. According to the chargesheet, Amit Digwekar alias Pradeep Mahajan, was a resident of the Sanatan Sanstha ashram in Goa. He is said to be the link between Sanatan Sanstha, an extremist Hindutva outfit, and the group formed by Amol Kale, the mastermind behind the crime, for the assassination of outspoken critics of Hindutva ideology.
The other accused, – KT Naveen Kumar, a Hindutva supporter, was a member of Sri Ram Sena, and is said to be the guy who arranged the guns and bullets to be used in the murder. He is also said to be the man seen on the CCTV footage around Gauri’s house before she was shot dead. Reports also suggest that Naveen could have been the one to drop the assailant, who finally shot Gauri, at her residence.
HL Suresh is accused of giving shelter to the accused in Bengaluru, while they were planning Gauri’s murder. In Jan-Feb 2017, months before Gauri's murder, Suresh was asked to identify where Gauri lived, her home and office address, among other things.
Although the chargesheet in the case was filed in 2018, the trial in the case began only in 2022, citing reasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic and because of a series of petitions that were being filed by the defence.