Bengaluru: Karnataka Police may have moved a step closer to cracking the Gauri Lankesh murder case with sources saying CCTV footage showed the suspected killer recceing the senior journalist’s house twice on the day of the killing.
Sources said the recce was allegedly done outside Lankesh's home once at 3 pm and then again at 7 pm by a person wearing a white shirt and a black helmet and riding a scooter.
CCTV footage showed the person passing by her home at 3 pm, taking a U-turn at the end of the road and turning back towards the house again. He repeated the manoeuvre at 7 pm, just an hour before the murder.
Sources said he reached the spot again at 8:05 pm, accosted Lankesh when she got in through the small gate to open the big one to let her car in and shot at her. The journalist made a desperate move towards her house but then collapsed seconds later in a pool of blood.
A minute later, a cable operator is seen reaching the spot on another scooter to address the complaint of another resident.
The ballistic report on the weapon used will take another ten days but police are using the lead from the CCTV footage to probe every angle and question those who worked with her about the threats she had faced.
55-year-old Gauri Lankesh, who was the editor of a Kannada weekly and a fierce critic of right-wing organisations, was shot dead at her house in Bengaluru on September 5. The murder led to widespread speculation that she was targeted by right-wing organisations.
On Thursday, Karnataka home minister Ramalinga Reddy refused to respond to reports of the kind of weapon used, saying, "Right now, we don't want to share anything with the media. We don't want to discuss the FSL report, for now."
A day earlier, the journalist's brother Indrajit Lankesh was questioned by the SIT over a complaint filed by Gauri in 2005 accusing him of threatening her with a gun over a property dispute.
The Karnataka government has extended police protection to writers, rationalists and progressive thinkers in the state on the advice of the intelligence department.
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