Bengaluru: KT Naveen Kumar, the first accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case, allegedly tried to influence and threaten a witness against giving evidence in the 10-month-old case.
The startling allegation was made before the Sessions Court where Naveen Kumar has applied for bail. Opposing the bail plea, public prosecutor TM Narendra told the magistrate that even while Naveen is in judicial custody, there is an attempt to pressure key witness Girish.
Naveen, arrested in February by a Special Investigation Team probing the case, has been in judicial custody for more than two months. He had founded the Hindu Yuva Sena in his hometown Maddur, around 85 km from Bengaluru. Among the first members of his outfit was his cousin Girish, who is now a police witness.
Sources in the SIT said Girish had recorded his statements before a magistrate, revealing what he knew about the plot to kill senior journalist Gauri Lankesh. Statements recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code are valid as evidence for related trials. Naveen Kumar's legal team had made a filing before the same magistrate that Girish wants to “retract" his statement.
Lankesh was killed by two bike-borne men outside her home on the night of September 5, 2017 while returning from office. The SIT has arrested six people in connection with the case and are on the lookout for at least three co-conspirators. The accused allegedly killed Lankesh because of what they believed were “anti-Hindu" views.
At least four people who knew about Naveen Kumar's alleged role in the conspiracy have now become police witnesses. This includes Girish, two others who were part of Naveen’s Hindu Yuva Sena and one Suresh, who allegedly allowed his home to be used by the shooter and the bike rider as temporary residence while they executed the plot to kill Lankesh.
That Naveen Kumar could allegedly indirectly threaten a witness is being presented as one of the main objections to his bail plea filed before the Sessions Court.
The prosecutor also submitted to the court that the investigators have found a match between the type of bullets and cartridges recovered from the crime scene and those that were later seized from Naveen’s possession by the SIT. Ballistic reports will be submitted to the Sessions Court by the end of the week.
Naveen Kumar’s lawyer has argued that his client is ready for a Narco analysis test now, after having backed out from it last month.
Who is Girish?
Girish is Naveen Kumar’s cousin who co-founded the Hindu Yuva Sena in Maddur around three years ago. Going by Naveen's confessional statement, Girish was in the know of the former’s meeting with the co-conspirators.
Girish had allegedly accompanied Naveen for a ‘Hindutva workshop’ in Bengaluru, where both of them met with another Hindutva activist, Mohan Gowda, who eventually put Naveen in touch with key functionaries of the network organisations.
It was Gowda who allegedly introduced Naveen to Sujith Kumar, alias Praveen, of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. Girish was also present at a clandestine meeting on January 13 in Maddur where he met three others accused in the case — Sujith, Amol Kale and one Nihal 'Dada'. While Nihal is absconding, the other two are in judicial custody.
Weeks after Lankesh’s murder, Naveen allegedly took Sujith, Kale and Nihal to a farmhouse in Maddur to plot their next assassination attempt, that of Professor KS Bhagwan, an academic in Mysore. They had allegedly begun conducting recce of Bhagwan’s home.
The SIT has established that the weapon used to kill Lankesh was the same one that was used to kill Professor Kalburgi three years ago, and Left-leaning thinker Govind Pansare before that in Mumbai.
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