The Pune sessions court has sent Sanatan Sanstha’s Virendra Tawade, believed to be the mastermind behind Narendra Dabholkar’s murder, to 14 days’ judicial custody.
The Pune sessions court has sent Sanatan Sanstha’s Virendra Tawade, believed to be the mastermind behind Narendra Dabholkar’s murder, to 14 days’ judicial custody. The Kolhapur superintendent of police said they would take his transit remand on June 24 after completing a few legal procedures.
Officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) produced Tawade at the court around 4.30 pm where their lawyer B.T. Raju claimed that the Sanatan member was the mastermind behind Narendra Dabholkar’s murder, and, to get more leads in the case, he requested the CBI be granted his custody for a few days.
According to sources, the investigative agency has found that the suspects had been using 119 bank accounts over the past few years. Accused Rudra Gauda, Sarang Akolkar, Vinay Pawar and a few others allegedly used some of these accounts to transfer money required for the murder. The CBI suspects that the accused might have used this money to buy some of the equipment used for the murder.
The CBI has also unearthed 169 cellphone numbers that were used by the suspects while planning the crime. Some of the accused who had been on the run since the past few years were called from these numbers. The investigative agency is currently checking the call records of all these phone numbers, which the CBI suspects were being used by Sanatan members to communicate with each other. According to sources, the agency is close to identifying such members and will soon interrogate them.
All these allegations, however, were refuted by defence lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar. He said that all the bank accounts mentioned belonged to Sanatan Sanstha’s followers so it should not be involved in the controversy. The lawyer also claimed that all the other allegations were made against the Sanatan members to discredit them.
Pansare connection On Monday, the Kolhapur police submitted an application in the court, requesting Tawde’s custody; and the court made no objection to it. The police is slated to take his custody soon. Commenting on the case, Kolhapur SP Pradip Deshpande said, “We wanted to interrogate him regarding the Pansare murder case as the CBI has claimed that Tawade was involved in three murder cases, including Pansare’s. We will get his custody on June 24.”
