CBI to send ballistic samples to New Scotland Yard

To ascertain whether a single firearm was used to kill three rationalists of Karnataka and Maharashtra between 2013 and 2015 by members of a right-wing group, the CBI has decided to send ballistic samples of the M.M. Kalburgi murder case (August 2015) along with the Narendra Dabholkar (August 2013) and Govind Pansare (February 2015) cases to the UK’s New Scotland Yard for expert opinion.

The CBI recently took the permission of a Dharwad-based court to acquire the Kalburgi case ballistic samples — two cartridge cases and bullets — from the Karnataka police. Confirming the development, a CBI officer told The Asian Age on Thursday, “The CBI will shortly send ballistic samples in all the three cases — Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi – to the Scotland Yard for expert forensic ballistic opinion.”

The CBI had earlier planned to send only ballistic samples recovered in the Dabholkar case by the local police and Pansare case by the Kolhapur police in Maharashtra. The CBI had therefore acquired permissions from two Maharashtra courts in May-June.

The samples are being sent to Scotland Yard’s forensic science laboratory since two separate findings by two Indian forensic science laboratories, which are based in Mumbai and Bangalore, had contradicted each other earlier. The Indian laboratories had concluded that the three rationalists were killed with an identical weapon, a 7.65 mm pistol/s, but they differed on whether one weapon was used or more, the reason why Scotland Yard’s help is being sought to throw light on the issue.

The Asian Age had reported on October 1 that forensic findings related to the Pansare case could link the three murder cases. A forensic test conducted in a government-run laboratory in Bengaluru had concluded that two country-made pistols of 7.65 mm calibre were used to target Pansare, out of which one each was used in the Dabholkar and Kalburgi cases. The two other cases came under the CBI scanner due to key similarities: Empty cartridges of a 7.65-mm country-made firearm were recovered from the sites where Dabholkar and Pansare were shot dead by motorbike-borne men in the early hours, according to the source. While the CBI is probing the Dabholkar case, the Maharashtra and Karnataka police are investigating the Pansare and Kalburgi cases, respectively.

The dispatch of the samples has been fraught with delays ever since the agency received court permissions for the move.

Once Scotland Yard sends its findings to the CBI, the latter will submit its final ballistics report to the courts. If a common link is established among the three cases, a CBI probe in the other two cases could be considered as well.