Bombay High Court asks CBI to trace killers of Dabholkar, Pansare

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court today asked the CBI and the Maharashtra CID to make "sincere and joint efforts" to trace the alleged absconding killers of Narendra Dabholkar and veteran Communist leader Govind Pansare.

While CBI is probing the Dabholkar case, the Pansare murder is being investigated by a Special Investigation Team of CID.

Both the agencies today gave their status reports on the probe to a division bench of Justice S C Dharmadhikari, which is hearing plea from the family members of slain rationalist Dabholkar and Pansare for monitoring the probe by the court.

After perusing the reports, the bench acknowledged the efforts being made to catch the culprits but said both the agencies should work in tandem because the accused persons in both the cases are similar and belong to the same right wing group.

"We are of the opinion that further co-ordination is expected from both the agencies (the CBI and the CID). The joint efforts have to be made to trace the absconding accused who are said to be the main perpetrators of the crime. Bearing in mind the seriousness of the crime committed, we expect and hope both the agencies would take sincere efforts in the case," the court said.

"We expect the agencies mot to leave any loose ends in the probe. We expect something concrete to emerge in the future in the probe," the court said while posting the matter for further hearing on April 20.

The court cautioned the agencies to be careful while probing the case and to ensure that nothing is done to assist the absconding accused.

While Dabholkar was murdered in Pune on August 20, 2013, Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. He died on February 20. Another rationalist and Karnataka scholar Prof M M Kalburgi was killed on August 30 last year.