CBI probe into activists' murders: One agency can investigate if there's common thread, says SC

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that if there is a "common thread" among the murders of social activists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalist M M Kalburgi, then one agency can investigate all the four cases.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Navin Sinha asked the CBI to inform it by January first week as to why it should not investigate all the four cases if there appears a link among all the murders.

The counsel for the Maharashtra government informed the court that the CBI is investigating the murder cases of social activist and professor Narendra Dabholkar after the Bombay High Court transferred the probes to the agency.

The court, after perusing the status report of the Karnataka Police, said there appears to be a link between the murders of journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalist M M Kalburgi.

It asked the Maharashtra government's counsel about the status of the investigation into the Pansare murder case, to which the counsel said the case was pending before the Kohlapur trial court.

Earlier in the day, the Karnataka Police had informed the apex court that there appears to be a connection between Lankesh and Kalburgi murder cases. The state police also told the apex court that it will file a chargesheet in the Kalburgi murder case in three months.

The top court on November 26 had pulled up the Karnataka government for "doing nothing and just fooling around" in the investigation and had indicated that it may transfer the case to Bombay High Court.

Noted scholar and rationalist M M Kalburgi was killed at Dharwad in 2015, Pansare, a social activist was also killed the same year. Lankesh, a journalist was killed on September 5, 2017 in Bengaluru whereas social activist and rationalist Dabholkar was assassinated on August 20, 2013.