At Tawade’s Panvel home, CBI finds list of ‘anti-Hindu rakshasas’

Pune: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday told a Pune court that it has recovered a list of names of people referred to as “danavas” and “rakshasas” (demons), from Sanatan Sanstha member Virendrasinh Tawade’s house in Panvel, arrested in anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabholkar’s murder case.
CBI counsel P B Raju said that whoever drew up the list, which contains names, profiles and photographs, considers the people mentioned in it as “anti-Hindu”.He did not reveal the names, though. Another CBI officer said the list, which is in a register, contains names of some police officers too.
Raju told the court: “The evidence collected by CBI (in the Dabholkar murder case) reveals that Tawade is the architect of the murder.”
Raju said the ballistic report from the state’s forensic experts confirms that the same weapon was used to kill both Dabholkar and rationalist Govind Pansare. This is the first time that CBI has made a statement before the court that the same weapon was used in both murders.
Tawade, produced in court on Thursday, was remanded in CBI custody till June 20.
Raju said one of the eyewitnesses in the Dabholkar case has identified Sarang Akolkar from one of the two sketches shown to him by CBI. The counsel, though, did not describe Akolkar’s role in the crime.
CBI officials told TOI another Sanatan member, Vinay Pawar, is one of the shooters. In court, Raju named five new suspects, Pawar being one of them. The others are Jaiprakash Hegde, Rudra Patil and Pravin Limkar, all Sanatan members, and one Agarwal, whose full name, let alone other details, is not known.
Earlier, additional superintendent of police S R Singh produced Tawade before the court around 1pm, following the expiry of his CBI custody. Tawade was clad in a half-sleeve white shirt and cream trousers. He appeared disturbed when CBI filed a plea to extend his custodial remand by eight days. Tawade did not complain against CBI when the plea came up.
Raju told the court that Tawade was not cooperating with the investigations. He said that one of Tawade’s email threads had revealed that he was asked to “concentrate” on Dabholkar around two to three months before the murder. Though Tawade did not respond to that particular mail, he took the services of Akolkar and Pawar to execute the murder, Raju said.
The prosecution said Tawade’s custodial interrogation was essential to trace the source of money allegedly used to purchase the firearms used in the Dabholkar and Pansare murders. CBI suspects that Tawade procured the weapon and cartridges and gave them to the assailants. Raju said investigations have revealed that Tawade had purchased the cartridges from Belgaum.
Raju said that Tawade, an ENT specialist, has not been practising since 2001. There was evidence to show that he was regularly in touch with Sanatan members who had taken firearms training in camps at Jat in Sangli and Ponda in Goa a few years ago. However, Tawade did not participate in the camps, he said.
According to the counsel, another one of Tawade’s emails talked of building a force of 15,000 Sanatan members to further their activities.
Raju told the court that Tawade was in touch with the suspects involved in the Goa blast and he had exchanged emails with Sarang Akolkar. He said National Investigation Agency had obtained call details of ten people, including Tawade’s, during its probe in the Goa blast.
Defence lawyer Sanjiv Poonalekar, who represented Tawade, argued that the emails received by his client were more than four years old and had nothing to do with the Dabholkar case.
The mails were opened by CBI on June 1, but Tawade was arrested nine days later. He argued that Tawade had been implicated in the case on suspicion as, apart from the mails, there was no other evidence to suggest his involvement.
Poonalekar told the court that the Sanatan Sanstha and other right-wing organizations have made numerous complaints to the state government giving details of alleged irregularities committed by Dabholkar’s trust, but no action has been taken till date.
After hearing both the sides, judicial magistrate first class V B Gulve Patil extended Tawade’s CBI custody till June 20.