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SIT Draws Up List Of 5 Suspects In Gauri Lankesh Murder:- A list of five suspects in the Gauri Lankesh murder case have been drawn up by the Special Investigating Team (SIT).

The investigating team suspects that these individuals could have carried out the murder of Gauri Lankesh and they are the same who were also involved in the blast at Madgaon in Goa. These persons are also linked to the right-wing Sanatan Sanstha organization.

The suspect list of the SIT include names of Praveen Limkar (34) from Kolhapur, Jayaprakash (45) alias Anna from Mangalore, Rudra Patil (37) from Sangli, Sarang Akolkar (38) from Pune and Vinay Pawar (32) from Satara.

The names of Rudra Patil, Akolkar and Pawar had cropped up earlier during the probes conducted by the CBI into the murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar (69), leftist thinker and rationalist Govind Pansare (81) and researcher M M Kalburgi (77). Dabholkar was murdered on August 20, 2013 at Kolhapur in Maharashtra; whereas Pansare was murdered on February 16, 2015 and Kalburgi on August 30, 2015 in Dharwad, Karnataka.

The suspects, Limkar, Anna, Akolkar and Patil are also suspected to have a vital role in the Madgaon bomb blast case, which occurred on October 19, 2009. It recalls, while transporting an IED that was to be planted at a Diwali program in Madgaon, two Sanatan Sanstha men were killed. These four men linked to the Sanstha among its most wanted suspects has been listed by the National Investigation Agency. Moreover, a red-corner notice has been issued against their names by the Interpol.

The markings on the bullets and cartridges bear a close resemblance to those found on bullets and cartridges fired to kill Kalburgi, discovered a forensic analysis. The analysis was done on the four empty cartridges and the four bullets fired to kill Lankesh. The preliminary findings confirmed this, suggesting that Lankesh and scholar Kalburgi were probably shot with the same 7.65-mm pistol. One common group is behind the two killings, suggested the ballistic findings, say sources.

SUPRAJA