Flashback 2016: No clarity in Govind Pansare trial

Though the state police’s special investigating team (SIT) that is probing the murder of Communist leader Govind Pansare submitted its supplementary chargesheet against Dr Virendra Tawade on November 30, it is not yet clear when the trial in the case will begin. This is because the prosecution has expressed its inability to commence trial without certain key evidence, including the firearm and cartridges used in the commission of the crime, which have been sent for expert opinion of the UK’s elite Scotland Yard’s forensic division.

Narendra Dabholkar

According to the supplementary chargesheet, Pansare’s assailants had allegedly seen him as a ‘durjan’ (bad person) due to his forward-looking, progressive outlook and targeted him. Indian forensic laboratories had concluded that Pansare (killed in February 2015), rationalist Narendra Dabholkar (killed in August 2013) and Kannada scholar M.M. Kalburgi (August 2015) were all murdered using an identical weapon, a 7.65 mm pistol/s, but they differed on whether only one weapon was used in the crime. A forensic test conducted in a government-run laboratory in Bengaluru had concluded that two pistols of 7.65 mm calibre were used to target Pansare, of which one each was used in the Dabholkar and Kalburgi cases.

Tawade is named in the supplementary chargesheet as an accused for his alleged role in getting reconnaissance conducted on Pansare via two co-accused, Vinay Pawar and Sarang Akolkar, who are absconding. The trial in the murder of Dabholkar is yet to begin, with the Bombay high court granting extension of stay on the trial as the forensic report from the UK’s Scotland Yard on the case’s ballistic samples has not yet been received.

Virendra Tawade

Meet the accused:
Virendra Tawade, a member of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, linked with right-wing outfit Sanatan Sanstha, has denied the charges levelled against him by the SIT.

• 2: Number of wanted accused the SIT is yet to nab
• 7.65 mm: The calibre of the pistol used to kill the rationalists  
• 150: The number of places in the state where Pansare was to protest against an outfit, according to the chargesheet